


I Am Your Protector

by Twilight_Shadow_Songs



Series: The Dad!Hector AU [2]
Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Fix It Fic, I still think Hector could be a good dad, Multi, My AU, only writing about bits Hector affects-the rest is canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:27:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25123885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twilight_Shadow_Songs/pseuds/Twilight_Shadow_Songs
Summary: sequel to You Are My Son, it's a dad!Hector AU, in which Hector adopts, raises and protects Eugene instead of guarding the Dark Kingdom's borders.Life isn't dull in the kingdom of Corona. Hector's loyalties don't fade or shift, simply grow. His role has expanded, and no matter how much it personally hurts him, his loyalties to his prince remain. His loyalties to Rapunzel form for the sake of Eugene, and remain.
Relationships: Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider/Rapunzel, Hector and Eugene as father and son, Hector and Lance Strongbow as father and son, the brotherhood were a poly but it's a past relationship
Series: The Dad!Hector AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1819933
Comments: 38
Kudos: 49





	1. Conflicted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CampionSayn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CampionSayn/gifts).



Before Hector had been a bookstore owner (and book repair stop, occasionally, if he felt so inclined) with a son dating a princess and another in jail and a third making possible crimes against science and any god that existed, he’d been a hunter, refugee and young father. 

Before that he’d been a knight in a kingdom and his son had been a prince. 

Honestly, with his go-ahead to let the book of fairytales Rapunzel made based on the stories he’d told Eugene be published for wide access, he’d been surprised it had taken this long for anyone to figure it out. 

The new lady in waiting to the little princess girl, and daughter of the captain. Cassandra had, and it frankly didn’t surprise him on that front. She’d been in and out, asking for maps the royal library didn’t have, books, legends, history books. 

Eventually after a few months of Rapunzel being princess and a few days of being the girl’s lady in waiting, she slammed the children’s book down on his counter, rousing him from a light doze. 

“You’re a killer.” She stated, with a face he supposed was supposed to be intense. 

“And a good afternoon to you too,” he intoned, bored as he blinked the sleep from his eyes, his head propped on his hand. “So you figured out I’m the mad man in the fairy tales.”

“Pretty ballsy.” She said, startled at his reaction.

“I was entertaining a child obsessed with  _ Flynn Rider.  _ Cut me a little slack. Half that’s embellished.” 

“But-but you’re a mad man! You love killing!”

“...I’ll admit.” He allowed as he stood up straight and adjusted his tunic. “Of all my comrades I enjoy fighting the most, and revel in bloodlust the most. Fuck, I have that reputation of bein th most dangerous, but I’ll have you know I haven’t indulged in that particular joy in decades.” 

He examined the book on the counter, noting how little Mad Will looked like him. The eyes though...he probably should have asked Rapunzel to color the eyes something else. His yellow-green was distinctive. She’d thought she was taking some artistic liberty and doing him the honor of having Eugene’s favorite character look like his adoptive father. He hadn’t the heart to admit to her they were one and the same. 

Eugene was than likely how Cassandra started realizing, given how her lady loved coming round to look at the books and talk to him and Eugene, when Eugene was staying over. 

“Been more busy raising my boys. Sellin books. Livin a life.” 

She settled back on her feet. “What changed? A kid?” Her slight anger confused and annoyed him. 

He sighed. “Look girl. I came here to raise my boy in peace. And yea, maybe I do miss fighting. Miss adventures. But I don’t  _ regret _ this. Weird as that sounds. 

He slid the book back to her. “Now, is that all? Cuz yer dad’s never been my or my boys’ biggest fan. I don’t want him in here again, accusin me of corruptin youth. Or some fuckin shit...give a baker’s girl a lesson in knife throwin  _ one time… _ ”

“I-uh- _ what- _ ” asked someone who apparently hadn’t been expecting this conversation to go this way. 

Hector rolled his eyes. “Rapunzel gave me the original copy of that book, y’know. You seriously think she’d be th type to publish it  _ without me givin th okay?”  _

Cassandra turned the color of a radish. 

“...I don’t like you.” 

“I don’t want ya t  _ like _ me girl. I wanna make a livin. Buy somethin or git th fuck outta my shop.” He began moving around the counter, intending to hustle her out. 

“Wait-” she skipped a few steps back, hands up. He paused, eyes narrowed and arms folded.

“What.”

“Do you have advice for the contest of Crowns. I’m assuming the part in the story where you’d been to every kingdom was true.” He rolled his eyes. 

“Yea...but not as a fighter. I’m better with  _ animals _ . Told I had t get in, observe,” he snorted. “I was pressed into behavin for a rhinoceros. Th same one I use fer m cart.”

Cassandra didn’t seem like she could fathom this.

“But you’ve observed each of them.” She reiterated. He shrugged blandly. 

At Cassandra’s glare though he pointed a warning finger. “I was on orders not to kill anybody. Plus, them royals I had t watch then ain’t competin now. They’d be the parents now. Hell. Yer queen was a girl gettin ready for eligibility to a prince some twenty odd years ago.” 

“You do know which country is best in what event. Give me a list? I want the upper hand.”

He smirked and rubbed his chin, weighing the pros and cons. Finally he shrugged.

“‘Kay.” 

=+=+=+=

Eugene came to him much later over an... _ issue. _

Black rocks. 

Hector nearly has a heart attack. 

Rapunzel also got the blond back, and Hector files this away, his unease growing. 

“Dad. Are we gonna be okay?”

Hector bit the inside of his cheek. His first instinct was getting the prince somewhere safer. But Eugene isn’t a child, he’s twenty five now and far too old to just yank around like before. Plus, there’s Rapunzel.

Hector has his suspicions on who she is, and why the rocks are here now. 

He finds it a strange thing the sun drop is attracted to the crown prince destined to keep the moonstone safe but...poetic irony or something. 

He can’t leave. Not yet. Because he’d be alone in running, and that defeated the point.

“...yea kid. We’re fine. We’re fine.”

Cassandra had been in too, demanding answers. Answers he wasn’t able to give because this had been  _ Adira’s  _ thing. He’d never listened to her about this. That was a massive ‘oops’ on his part.

“Look. Yer king an queen heard about the sun drop somewhere, heard about how it heals. An it wasn’t from me. If there’s any sort of answer, it’s in yer library up there in th castle.” 

He’d waved a hand “credit where credit’s due you assumed I knew anythin. Did Eugene tell you anythin about...?”

“The black rocks were what caused you to flee your country. They destroyed it.” She’d looked saddened for a moment before her face hardened. “And sad as it is I call bullshit you of all people don’t know.”

He’d just shrugged. Quirin probably knew more, but Hector was damned if he was going to get Quirin involved. Quirin had more than enough on his hands with Varian and Varian’s compounds and being the father of a well meaning but overeager teenager. 

Besides, they had apparently been to Varian and Quirin’s village and Varian had helped with the hair, which more than likely hadn’t helped Quirin’s relationship with his son. Though Hector wasn’t worried, Varian and Quirin would work it out together, they just needed to adapt. 

Quirin had even asked Hector to take a few steps back, and Hector respected that. Quirin was better at asking for help than Hector had ever been. Hector trusted him to approach if he needed help. 

“Look Cassandra. I got out. With Eugene. That’s all I wanna consider.” He glanced over her hair, her skin, her eye shape, how similar it was to his and Varian’s, to Quirin, and remembered her father had adopted her. “Wasn’t th only refugee.” He’d then ignored her as a customer came in. 

He thanked every miracle Eugene had brown hair and brown eyes. It let him blend in just a little more. 

=+=+=+=

Things progressed, Lance came back home, a quite different man from the boy Hector had raised. Hector could see the good still in him though, it just needed a chance to grow again. 

He still managed to lecture as effectively though, despite Lance’s growth spurt. 

“No note, no word-I woulda made a room for ya if you’d have let me know you were gettin out!”

“Sorry dad, I know dad, Listen I have a plan…”

Thievery and shenanigans because when wasn’t there with his boys? (Not that he ever minded. Long as who they stole from wouldn’t be worse off when they took the items. There were standards and he held them to those standards.)

Lance took off again after the heist, and despite his outward stoicness, it somewhat saddened Hector. When he heard an Arnwaldo had donated money to all of the orphanages in Corona though, he smiled. When he found a little money hidden in one of his boots, enough to buy his pick of books for the next two years, he rolled his eyes, and put the money away without telling the captain.

Wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

=+=+=+=

“I need to know where you were a few days ago.” The Captain said, sternly, in the marketplace of all places. Hector inspected an apple, though he side-eyed the captain.

“Why?”

“Excuse me?”

“Well...I wanna know if I need to lie or not.”

The captain moved in front of him, cutting off his access to the fruit. Hector scowled at him. “What.” Hector asked, a bit farther past annoyed now. 

“There’s been a string of thefts, and I want to know where you were.” 

Hector settled back on his heels, canting his hips to rest a hand on it as the hand with the apple extended the fingers, the apple resting in the palm.

“Five weeks ago I was recovering because of minor burns from an experiment of a foster son.” His lips quirked into a smile. “Hectorionite hasn’t got all the quirks ironed out, apparently. Heard all about that prank from Eugene later. Good for him and Frederick.” He folded his thumb over the apple.

“Four weeks ago I was in Moon Scroll selling little books on science experiments and things like that. Busy week.” He folded his pinky over the apple.

“Three weeks ago in the holiday I took a break because people  _ suck _ . Especially idiots in love. I believe I spent the day in the Snuggly Duckling. Good job on your daughter's part, by the by.” He folded his pointer over the apple. 

“Two weeks ago I was business as usual. Rapunzel brought me a muffin from Attila and Monty’s bakery. They’re good. I like the poppy seed best.” Ring finger folded over the apple.

“Last week was nothing big. Helped Rapunzel look for Pascal. Like animals, happy to help. She’s a good girl.” He let his middle finger linger before folding it over the apple. “This week you’re yelling at me while I buy fruit.” Captain raised an eyebrow but stepped aside. However, he didn’t leave.

Hector grinned. “Lance is home and lookin for a job. He offered to cook tonight, an I needed to stock up on supplies anyway. You wouldn’t  _ believe _ how much food I can get through in three weeks.” What with all the stray animals, stray children, and his kids-and the Captain’s girl too, there was barely a day he wasn’t eating with company. It was nice, though exhausting. 

The Captain paused, and offered Hector another apple. “I’ve been having Eugene train my men to think more like a thief. If it really isn’t you, then neither of your sons would mind finding the actual thief and bringing him in.”

“Might not be a ‘he’ but yea. Sure. Tell them tonight, since Cass an Rapunzel are comin over with Eugene.” 

“Must be hard with him living in the castle most of the time now.” 

Hector just shrugged. “This might surprise you, but I ain’t bothered by solitude.” 

“Must have been a lot of that after Eugene’s mother died.”   
  


“...yea.” He gave the captain a strange look. “Quite a lot of bein alone. Why?”

The Captain simply narrowed his eyes before walking away. Hector couldn’t decide if this is a threat or a romantic pass, or even a weird attempt at finding common ground. He decided it was none of that, the captain was just an idiot trying to scare him. He bought the fruit, bread, cheese, and some meat specified on the list given by Lance, and he went home.

The Captain doesn’t come to dinner, and Hector isn’t surprised.

It’s good having his boys back together. Lance stays in a guest room-his room if he stays for a while-and Hector listens to the nightmares at night, wishing he’d broken them out of jail when they were teens. Sometimes if Lance is up and pacing, Hector wanders to his kitchen and makes them both warmed honey and cinnamon chamomile tea, a surefire way to get Lance tired and relaxed. 

He meets Red and Angry briefly, and watches Lance fall into a paternal sort of love for them. The girls remind him so much of Eugene and Lance when they were that age, and he feels bad for them. There’s so many orphans in this kingdom. 

“Oi, Gingersnaps, Teenybop, stop callin me Pops”

“No promises Pops.”

“We could call you Ancient Fart.”

“...You know what? Pops is fine.”

Lance takes the cook job at the Snuggly after the two girls decide to travel on, and Hector is proud of him.

=+=+=+=

So ghosts were a thing. Ok. 

Hector had gone to try Lance’s cooking at the Snuggly Duckling, sample the menu now that Lance had had a few weeks to fix it up more. Attila was great, but his strengths were certainly more in the pastry side of things. Lance left after a bit, but To Hector’s utter annoyance though, the captain showed up on the heels of the princess.

“What are you doing here.” The captain asked, annoyed, and Hector put down his cards, as the captain had interrupted a friendly game of poker while they ate, and turned slowly, eyes narrowed and dangerous. His hair concealed half his face and he probably looks like he used to. Dangerous and half mad. 

“Eatin’.” 

“Hector! Hi!”

Rapunzel, bless her, got between them and hugged around Hector’s neck. Hector patted her back absently, keeping eye contact with the captain, silently challenging him to make an issue with the princess there. The captain on his part looked ticked off to high heaven. 

“How’s my favorite painter?” He asked her, ignoring the captain finally. 

“Oh, well, you know. Struggling. Dad still doesn’t want me to leave the safety of Corona.”

While he wanted to say “your dad’s the biggest moron I’ve ever met” he instead said “and that’s why I let you read as many books as you want.”

He was fond of her. She was a good girl, curious and insightful and kind. And when he looked at her and Eugene he felt like things would be alright. She was more than capable, even with her first several years in the tower. She was growing past Gothel and he was proud of her. 

The storm got too bad to leave, much to the captain’s ire and Hector’s quiet amusement. He and the pub thugs ended the game and he settled on the bench, intending to sleep until the storm passed. He'd never been picky about sleeping arrangements. 

“Can I talk to you?” 

“Sure princess” He said, not opening his eyes. 

“Would you..be my bodyguard?”

His eyes snapped open. 

“...I’d take it up with yer dad.”

“My dad has me being stalked by all the guards in the kingdom.” she scuffed a foot. “And you’re going to be my dad too! You know. When I accept a proposal.”

Oh, shit. 

_ Oh, shit. _

He sat up and looked at her. 

“Princess-”

“Don’t touch that! It’s never to be disturbed!”

Hector wasn’t surprised the culprit was the fucking captain. 

Surprised the legend wasn’t a bunch of shit though, and then had to stop and wonder why he didn’t consider magic powers to make you young, indestructible hair, magic stones, and shapeshifting weird, but apparently drew his line at ghosts. Huh. 

Had to wonder why Shorty of all people got possessed, but was glad it wasn’t him. Yikes. His head was a haunted house he didn’t want anyone in. 

His opinion on the captain kept going down with every moment the man tried to control the situation. When Rapunzel suggested learning about Ruth, Hector sat down again, willing to listen to the myths about this woman. He liked the sound of her. She would have been an excellent member of the Brotherhood. 

The more Ruth possessed things and talked to Rapunzel the more he liked her. He threw his head back and laughed when Captain tried to arrest the undead.

He got his comeuppance though. In the form of having to fight a bunch of possessed swords with his dagger he kept in his boot. 

“Hey Captain fuck up!” He snarled when the man threw the club into the fire. “Maybe trust your future queen! Not everythin is ever as it seems! Learn to adapt!”

“Oooh, tall dark and edgy gets it!” Said Ruth from where she was pushing herself out of the wall-an inch or two from Hector’s shoulder. 

“Mother FUCK-” He cursed, stumbling away from her. The Captain laughed.

“You got a dream, braids?” Ruth asks, shooting a glare at the captain. “Has he stomped on it?”

“Er-yea. But it don’t involve singin. Not a fan.” He smiled slightly. “But I’d sing fer yeh.”

“Ruth, we can still play the song. You can’t burn a dream.”

Rapunzel said gently. Hector, once his disbelief they were singing a song to break a curse passed, sang loudly, though feeling like an idiot. Ruth would have been a hit if she’d been alive. He liked her. When she passed on he nodded to Rapunzel. “I’ll see you tomorrow, your majesty. If you still wish me to look after you.” She beamed at him. 

“I still don’t like you” Said the captain. Hector grinned at him.   
  
“Oh what’s that? Can’t hear you over how much time we’re gonna be spending together seeing as I’m  _ The princess’s personal body guard. _ ”

“Oh  _ fuck  _ you!”

He shouted, fists balled and Hector gave a mock scandalized gasp, before smirking. 

“Captain! I’d never let you in my kitchen let alone my bedroom.”

That evening he took his old weapons from a trunk in his room. 

“I have a dream, I have a dream, there ain’t no magic rocks t’be seen.

Theres a cottage an I have all the beasts I can keep,

I have a dream, yea, it’s a dream. 

My boys are happy an free, 

S’ppose it’s peace I want, 

But hey way down deep inside I got that dream…”

He hummed absently as he strapped his sword gauntlet to his arm. He unsheathed it, observing his reflection and eerie green eyes.

“Fer th moonstone. He muttered. “Fer King Edmund. Fer prince Eugene.” He sighed. “Fer Corona an Princess Rapunzel, th sundrop.”

=+=+=+=

“So horses can be criminal masterminds now… kay…”

=+=+=+=

“Queen Arianna, what’s that thing?”

“A pet my sister left behind. Do you mind taking care of it till she comes back? Don’t take away the rattle for the love of all humanity.”

“....kay….”

=+=+=+=

He was still shaken, as they prepared for the blizzard, by the argument he’d had with Quirin. 

_ “You  _ **_knew_ ** _ about these experiments with the rocks and you didn’t tell me?!” _

_ “I didn’t see the harm, it’s-” _

_ “You DID see the harm, or you would have told me!” _

_ “Quirin! The stones are invading Corona! If we can make them go away without the sun drop, it’d be better.” _

_ “The sun drop is a myth, Hector. You and I both know that! You lost Adira over this!” _

_ “And I was wrong! But it’s not like the moonstone-Quirin it’s the princess. It’s the princess an if Adira’s right, them joining’s gonna kill her.” _

_ “So you’d use my son and lie to me?!” _

_ “If we don’t follow any chance we’re no better than Edmund. How many people are going to die over that fucking stone?!” _

_ “....get out of my house Hector. And don’t speak to Varian.”  _

Rapunzel sends Eugene and Lance and some guards. He let them have their moment, before going to his prince. His son. 

He gave Eugene his furred cloak. It fit him like a glove. 

“You be careful, I’ve only got one of you.” He points a finger at Lance. “I only got one of you too, so both of you knock off the hero shenanigans fer right now. Be fuckin careful.”

“We will. We promise.”

“Promises don’t mean shit, just come home.”

Zhan Tiri. The storm was Zhan Tiri. His only reference to the name was the tree, but somehow this didn’t surprise him. If Zhan Tiri could take over a tree why not a storm. 

“My Queen,” he addressed Rapunzel, and felt strange doing so. She  _ was  _ acting queen and he  _ was  _ in her service but…

_ His  _ queen was Miette, still. 

“Do you want me here or helping evacuate the towns?”

He was transported back to twenty four years ago. Back to Edmund and the queen and losing Adira and promising a dead woman he was going to keep her infant son safe. 

The shaken feeling got worse. 

“No-no I need you to stay here with me, Hector. We need to be ready if anything else happens.” 

“Yes, your highness.” 

It’s  _ cold. _

Hector is in three layers of borrowed clothes and allocating blankets to everyone in the castle when Varian burst in with guards trailing after him.

“Let me through, please! I have to get to the princess!”

Hector shoved the guards away. 

“Varian, what’s wrong?”

Varian shook his head. “It’s dad- Hector I need to see Rapunzel, she’s the only one who can help!”

“...Can it wait?”

“No-he might be dying, please Hector!”

His head dropped into Hector’s chest. 

“One of my compounds.. it’s all my fault.”

Hector grabbed Varian’s arm and pulled him to the library. 

“Rapunzel!” Hector called to her, panicked and suddenly afraid that once again his last conversation with someone he loved would be an argument.

“Hector I-Varian? Hector take him to a guest room I may have found an answer.”

“My queen,” Hector cut in, hating himself, “Varian’s father is in danger, he’s dying I-I can take care of whatever you found. Please.” 

He hates that he’s pleading, hates that he has to ask at all, that he caused this by not stopping Varian from studying the rocks and the magic of Rapunzel. 

He feels worse when Rapunzel goes teary eyed. 

“I have to fix this here,  _ now _ , or we all die.” 

Hector can’t argue, he doesn’t know what to say. 

“My lady, didn’t you promise-”

“Hector please- I’ll try to help when I can but...my kingdom, my parents,  _ Eugene-” _

He turns to Varian. “I need to take you somewhere safe.”

“But-”

“Varian I’ve never known your compounds to be lethal, so, if you could just  _ wait.” _

Varian shook his head, angered. “You’re not my father!”

And this wounds Hector more than he thought something like that would. 

“You’re not the only one who cares about Quirin. I’m-I’m- Varian the kingdom is going to freeze over and everyone will die if this isn’t fixed.”

“Let them.” Varian hisses.

Hector’s eyes narrow and he can’t stop looking at how cold Varian is. How like  _ Hector _ Varian is. He grabs him by the back of his shirt and hoists him to a guard, as easily as carrying a dog or cat. The raccoon tries to claw him but Hector grabs him too and drops them at the feet of Stan. 

“Take them to a room with no windows and only one door. Don’t let either of them out till Rapunzel and I can get to them.” 

_ “You’re a traitor to your cause, Hector!”  _ Varian screamed as he was hauled down the hall. Hector collapsed to the wall and tried to get himself together. 

He emotionally pulls away from everyone. Even after the blizzard is fixed, he can’t bring himself to shake what Varian said. 

They all travel to the workshop, and Hector is utterly destroyed. Varian presses Rapunzel to help, and she tries. But it’s not enough. They don’t have her healing magic. 

“If you’d gotten here sooner he wouldn’t be like this!” and they all get pushed out. 

Hector holds it together till he gets home. 

He grieves alone. Hates himself alone. 

He wants it to be easy like it is for Varian. Simply be able to blame everyone else like Varian.

But he can’t.

The next day he’s at Rapunzel’s and Eugene’s sides, dry eyed and professional and attentive. 

He serves the royal family before he serves the brotherhood. The sundrop will destroy the moonstone. 

He’s aware he’s setting up Rapunzel as a sacrificial lamb, but there’s no other current way. 

He throws himself into studying the lore. Maybe he can bring Quirin back if Rapunzel gains her healing powers back. She brought Eugene back from the dead. 

Maybe she can spare Hector the intense guilt he has, and maybe she doesn’t have to die, either.

=+=+=+=

“Is being queen always going to be like that?” Rapunzel asks one day and Hector sighs. He knows what she’s asking. 

“My king evacuated th whole kingdom rather’n risk anyone dyin like his wife. So yea. I think so. There’s a lotta stuff a royal gotta think bout.” 

“I feel like I made the wrong choice!” She finally yells at him and he shrugs again. What could he say? He agreed. Even if he knew she didn’t.

She was trying to paint a mural for the gallery and Hector himself was sketching something for Eugene and Rapunzel.

His art skills had always sucked but he figured it’d be appreciated.

“I can’t paint anything. I-I just-”

“You can’t stop thinkin bout what happened. Mebbe walk around an clear yer head, Princess.”

“That’s…thank you Hector. I will.” She took his hand for a moment. “You’re a good friend.” 

When she left he stayed where he was. 

“Ah! Hector! Just the man I wanted to speak to!”

“...King Fredrick.” Hector inclined his head.

The man looked a little lost for a bit, and afraid. Hector waited. Finally the man cleared his throat.

“It’s about Rapunzel.”

“Didn’t think it was bout th price of tea.” Hector remarked dryly. “What about your daughter?”

“Isn’t it strange for you to be wandering behind her…?”

Hector set his drawing paper down. 

“Yer majesty this is a case of yer daughter knowin more’n you. I was a knight b’fore I came here. There’s nobody better qualified.”

“Well my guards-”

“Nobody. Better. Qualified.” Hector waited to see if the King would argue again. He didn’t. 

“Ah, well, maybe I can ask a favor then.”

“I won’t keep her here if she don’t want me to.”

“But, what if this was Eugene?”

“I let Eugene go t prison cuz he wanted to be a professional thief an didn’t argue when he chose to stay in prison, yer majesty. If she wants me t guard her while she’s outside yer borders I wouldn’t say no. Let her learn an explore.”

“You’re her guard!”

“Her guard that answers to  _ her _ , not you. Also her beau’s father. An a knight from another kingdom.  _ I don’t answer to you.”  _ He paused. “Does it piss you off there’s a part of her life you can’t control?”

When Frederick stormed away Hector knew he’d pay dearly for that remark at some point. 

When she joined the art class with Lance Hector took a couple days to collect himself. When it turned out it was a plot by a follower of Zhan Tiri he asked Rapunzel not to tell her dad. 

He helped her paint the mural, and added a small moon conjoined to a sun to the corner. 

=+=+=+=

Swapping personalities with Queen Arianna was a trip. Her threatening to take the rattle from that crazy pet of her sister’s and sick it on her husband was hilarious, though. 

The Queen acting like him in his glory days was... _ weird.  _ He kinda understood how it’d be terrifying but mostly he thought it was funny and let her attack her husband, because apparently his intense dislike of Frederick was enough to count as a personality. 

Either that or Arianna finally called bullshit and no longer had the politeness to mask it.

=+=+=+=

Varian came back, manipulated Rapunzel. 

Hector found it telling she chose to cry in Eugene’s arms in the bookstore than talk to her parents. 

=+=+=+=

“I can’t believe king Frederick is sending me to a convent!”

“One, yea, you don’t seem the nun type but hey, peace an quiet. Two, I’m bein exiled so…” 

Hector commented while helping clean stables with Cassandra, and though he found her cold and kind of a bitch, he sympathised. From the look on her face, she sympathised with him, too. He retreated when Rapunzel and Eugene came to speak to Cassandra, and didn't talk to Eugene after. He didn't know what to say.

Hector decided if someone didn’t put Frederick in his place-and soon- he’d destroy his own kingdom from his fear. 

When Cassandra and Eugene broke Rapunzel out of her room, that she’d been locked in on orders of Frederick, Cassandra was packed kicking and screaming into a carriage and Hector was thrown into a cell with his hands shackled behind his back. 

Frederick could fucking die at this point.

Eventually, Eugene posing as a guard broke him out.

“Queen Arianna’s been kidnapped and oh yea, there’s a bunch of automatons outside causing a lot of mayhem.”

“...An this is why the king is useless. You got my weapons?”

“Yea.”

“You got Cassandra?”

“Oh come on! Do we really-don’t look at me like that of course we got her. Frederick really needs to pay attention to who he pays to be a guard because Lance just put on a helmet and nobody seemed to notice. Either that or the captain called bull on the king too.”

“Seigmund wouldn’t call bullshit against his king directly. He ain't me. So whether or not he did we’re never gonna know cuz he's never gonna admit it.”

“Excuse me, the Captain’s name is  _ Seigmund?” _

Hector flashed a feral grin. 

“I know I know, finally a name worse than Horace. You ain’t allowed t' tease him though.” 

“Oh, come on! Wait-please tell me you just broke into his house.”

“Alright. I just broke into his house.”

“Oh-hold on. Are you lying? Dad? Dad!”

He had, actually, looked at the records of the guards in the library but teasing Eugene was fun. 

When they got to Varian Hector found out what perfected Hectorionite did. 

“Do you like it? It makes people monsters, like you!” The boy called as he patted the side of the giant, maddened Ruddiger. 

“Look kid. Yer dad was my leash. Y’wanna see what a monster can do? Let’s go.”

It felt good not trying to restrain himself. 

Quirin was still in the amber, and Hector still wanted to kill Frederick, almost did. Varian was being carted to prison and Rapunzel was finally ready to go to the moonstone. 

Hector felt empty. 

Rapunzel invited him to go with her, and he nodded once. 

“You know where the rocks go, don’t you?”

“...My homeland. Yes.”

Several hours later he went to his store, he went to his room, and he put on an outfit he hadn’t worn in twenty five years, sans the cloak. That was now Eugene’s. Someone moved from the shadows of his door, and he was too slow to react. He'd gotten rusty against someone of his own skill-level.  


A hand grabbed his hair and a black rock sword pressed against his neck. Hector stayed very still, breath slowing.  


“And you called me the traitor.”

“...Adira.” 

=+=+=+=

**_Dear Princess,_ **

**_I’m going on ahead of you. Meet me at the Great Tree. Eugene can lead the way, he knows where it is._ **

**_I feel you can get there no problem, and I can get you to the moonstone from there. This is a journey you should take on your own terms, without me._ **

**_-yours faithfully,_ **

**_Hector_ **


	2. Hypocrite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adira is angry, and rightfully so. Hector isn't going to ever fault her.
> 
> They go through their own adventures getting to the tree. Hector still fights the group there, but accompanies them to the Dark Kingdom. 
> 
> Hector is given an offer. He doesn't feel human anymore.

“You want to explain how you went from gung ho follow Edmund off a cliff to abandoning the kingdom in the space of a few hours enough to commit to raising a couple of kids in Corona?”

“Somethin felt off bout him bein sick so I turned round and what do ya know, he was fakin the deathbed illness.” Hector muttered, head down and eyes focused on the shackles on his hands. He was on the back of his rhinoceros, and had located his binturongs in the forest just outside Corona, under threat from Adira who, for good reason, didn’t trust him. They walked beside the horse and rhino, casting worried looks to the two humans now and then. “He was sendin his son off too, dead wife on the bed he’d been in couple hours before, an I wasn’t gonna let him just abandon th kid. Edmund’d gone mad, Adira.”

“The truth Hector.”

He groaned.    
  


“You keep askin me an I keep tellin ya.” He grit at her, finally looking over. “An that th thief boy th princess sundrop is seein is prince Horace.”

“Oh I believe that. Not anything else, but I believe that. Leave it to you to make him a thief.”

“At least he can read and has table manners. That’s more’n even Quirin was expectin.” He muttered, eyes going back to his hands. The chain on the shackles laced through the halter on his steed and held by Adira. 

“Who you’d have me believe is in Corona encased in amber.”

“We can fuckin go back an you can look fer yerself.”

She didn’t deign to answer and he considered his hands again. They were encased in rounded metal pods chained together and with a length for Adira to hold. He was half afraid to ask where she’d gotten these and why, exactly. He didn’t believe for a moment they’d originally been for him. 

“I’m sorry this happened, sister.” He said, and he meant it. She bowed her head.

“As am I, brother.” She straightened after a few moments and regarded the chain in her hand.

“Will you run? If I release your bonds?”

“No. There ain’t no place t’go cept th tree, an you an I are already headed there.”

“If you run, I’m tying you to the back of your rhino the rest of the way.” he knows it’s his only warning. He shrugs, offers the shackled hands.

“You might be shocked, but that ain’t th worst threat I’ve heard this week.”

=+=+=+=

  
  


Adira and Hector had always bickered and argued, much like magpies. Without Quiran to act as mediator they didn’t have any reason to stop. 

It was exhausting. 

“If you wanna get to the tree b’fore Rapunzel an th rest do, mebbe less hair wash an more walk.” Hector commented one day, arms folded as he sat on a rock, watching Adira laboring over her hair and being happy his was short. 

“Oh says the man who’d spend two hours using charcoal sticks to make his eyes pop.”

“Don’t gotta anymore though do I? I just barely sleep.”

“Tell me-have the raccoons accepted you as their king yet?” 

_ Do you like it? It makes people monsters just like you. _

He threw a stone at her, missing on purpose. It was more a warning than anything.

“Don’t.” He warned her, voice low. “Just drop it, Adira.” 

“You brought up my hair!” Though when she saw his face she did stop. She’d always been more decent than him. He would have continued heckling. 

They did get on the road again, not that Hector actually minded. This was just what they did. It was familiar and natural. 

“You changed.” Adira eventually mentioned. “You have. Exile was good to you.” 

“Exile wasn’t  _ good _ to me. Exile was shit. Fatherhood…” he shrugged. “Would have rather done it with you an Quirin. Mebbe not th prince, but Eugene’s a good boy.” 

“Why Eugene and Hector Fitzherbert, of all aliases?”

“Common Corona names.” He admitted with a shrug. “And Eugene is kinder than Horace. He renamed himself Flynn. Which I suppose is better’n either. But obviously it didn’t stick long.”

“Interesting. By the way, I did think you had named yourself Mad Will for a time”

“...I’m regrettin lettin Rapunzel publish the book.”

Adira laughed bitterly.

“Tales of the Brotherhood. I recognized some of the stories. Behind all the embellishments. Your exploits were obvious. Again, behind the embellishments.” He went a bit red. 

“Cut me a little slack, you’d have done similar trying to get a kid to stop asking for the same story for the millionth time in a row.” She shrugged, conceding the point. 

“Your portrayal of me...thank you.” She admitted quietly after a time. “I didn’t know you thought that highly of...well...anyone.” 

“You always were th strongest an kindest of us, Adira.”

“Remember what Edmund always said? Quirin was the most steadfast and resilient. I was the most clever and kind, You were the most adaptable and ruthless.”

He snorted. “He  _ did _ used t say that, didn’t he?”

“...what happened, Hector?”

“...we all made a choice.” 

=+=+=+=

“How long will your princess take?”

“Not my princess. But knowin Rapunzel a few months at least. Girl attracts strange. Don’t even think it’s the sundrop thing. Think it’s just her.”

“The company you keep.”

“Adira I sang a bar song to help a ghost move on. Rapunzel’s just  _ like that.”  _

They were about halfway there, with plans on Adira doubling back and aiding Rapunzel should she need it. She didn’t trust Hector and he didn’t blame her. 

He was already planning on getting to the group at the first opportunity. 

“You sure  _ you’re  _ not the one who’s just “like that”, Hector?” Adira commented dryly later in the day as they sat as a (literal) captive audience to a traveling band of bards. Hector shrugged.

“Our destination is a  _ magic sentient tree _ an yer raisin an eyebrow at bards with enchanted instruments?”

“Getting to Corona there wasn’t any magic. Now I’m with you and there is. So yes, consider my eyebrows raised.”

“How about we consider a way out of th magic bindings an rescue our animals from th pipers?”

If it was possible to mix agitation with boredom, this was where Hector was at. He and Adira had, one moment, been bickering as two pipers passed by, and the next held hostage in their camp while their animals danced. 

And no matter what Adira said, Hector was fairly sure Rapunzel’s party was also going through bizarre happenstance that trumped this. 

“Oi, crazy piper number one, what the  _ fuck _ -mph!”

A trill on the pipe and his mouth snapped shut as Adira snorted laughter. 

“Oh that’s an improvement.” 

He turned to look at her with annoyed disbelief. 

“Okay I’m just saying you’ve gotten more talkative in the last twenty years.” 

His eyebrows went up higher before one dropped and he squinted an eye at her, mouth turning to the side. 

“I said you’d changed, I didn’t say all of it was good change.” 

A roll of his eyes as he frowned. 

“Hector it’s not an insult!”

Dropped his face down and looked up at her, eyebrows quirked. 

“We’ve just changed. Both of us.”

“You two have been friends a long time.” A bard observed. Hector shrugged.

“We’re brothers in arms.” Adira admitted with a sigh. “Though I consider that a bit inaccurate considering I’m a woman but-” 

Hector, finding the magic bindings gone (though his mouth still closed) gently pressed a hand to her shoulder, snapping her out of the old tangent. She looked down. 

“We argue. It’s just what we do.” 

“There’s old hurt though.” Said the other bard.

“Course.” Hector said, and grinned, delighted they gave him back his voice. “Spend an entire  _ lifetime  _ with someone an then separate with th’ last conversation yeh had bein an argument an a threat an see how much ‘old hurt’ still lingers.”

“Is that an admission of regret Hector?” Adira asked, smirking. 

“Nope. Just truth.”

“...You missed us.” she said, and he snorted.

“Not a day I didn’t want yeh with me an Quirin, yes.” He grimaced. “Mebbe it fueled my actions towards th end. You were right.” her mouth dropped open.

“Say that again.”

He gave her a strange look.

“Once was enough.”

“You two should sing it out.” said one bard, evidently thinking they were being helpful. Hector side-eyed them, hoping he looked as malicious as he felt in that moment.

“You try to make me sing an I will break your pipes.”

“..never mind, then.”

The next moment they were back on their steeds, the day back to mid-afternoon, in the spot they encountered the bards in the first place. Hector looked around, creeped out. 

“Is there a town nearby by any chance?”

“...yea...Maybe they have an inn…” 

The lilting sounds of pipes spurred them. Hector had a hope Rapunzel and Eugene and the others were experiencing...less...oddities than ghost bards. 

“Does this usually happen to you now?”

“If we were with the princess it may have been a criminal mastermind horse. Count your blessings.”

=+=+=+=

“Tell me about Horace.”

She’d asked this when they got to another town and needed to take a break. Thankfully since the bards there wasn’t much in the way of strange occurrences, but there was a gentler atmosphere between them. 

He shrugged as they walked. 

“Put my impulsiveness with Edmund’s bullheaded ways and toss in a nice healthy dose of imagination and creative dumb luck.” Hector smiled wryly. “Kind, too. There was this once, about, mm….fifteen years back, maybe. He drags this girl by the wrist and tells me to take care of her. Regal as you please.” He laughed at the memory. “Some baker’s daughter. Her dad wanted her to go into something ladylike, apparently, raise her status. Eugene decided that wasn’t gonna happen.”

“What happened then?”

“I got in trouble for teaching her how to throw knives but hey! She’s in the circus I hear, happy as anything.” 

“I’ve seen his posters, Eugene’s, I think. Under Flynn Rider? What’s wrong with his nose?”

Hector grinned maniacally. “Spite, good ink, and too much free time.”

“...Glad to know  _ that,  _ of all things, hasn’t changed.” she commented dryly.

Although things were somewhat settled, Hector was still planning to escape and Adira was still watching him closely.

Eventually he saw his chance. Slim, but there. 

“...What’s taking them?”

“Magic pipers, maybe. Or other shit.” it’d been two weeks since they’d come to the town and Adira was restless. Hector was as well, though not quite as bad. He’d heard from other travelers a few days in about some woman named Stalyan, a Baron, and “Flynn Rider’s” disastrous almost wedding to Stalyan. 

The most he could do was feel second hand embarrassment about it all but as Eugene and Lance were apparently fine, it was all he let himself feel. 

He bided his time, because the longer they took, the more Adira got sloppy. Hector was the more impulsive one, but he hadn’t gotten ‘unpredictable’ and ‘most dangerous’ as additives by simply being  _ impulsive.  _ He could think things out, bide his time, if it gave him the best upper hand and he had no other choice.

Pincosta, where they were, had also been affected by “Flynn Rider” and Hector needed to address it. Later. He had to address this later. But Eugene was getting a talking to one way or another. 

Another week and Hector broached the topic of the sundrop.

“Exactly why are ya so desperate t get them t’gether, in any case? Won’t they explode? Ain’t that what you were thinkin?”

“Well yes but the princess must have access to the flower the sundrop became. Why her hair is that way. I’ll simply ask her to combine them.”

Hector felt a cold panic. “Adira, she is th sundrop. From what I heard, the girl’s mum drank a magic healing flower. Then her captor mum used her to stay young. Fer all intents and purposes, Rapunzel is the sundrop as a human.”

Adira closed her eyes, resigned. “The moonstone kills or hurts anyone who touches it. We can’t risk trying to bond it to a human. But if what you say is true, perhaps Rapunzel can bond with the moonstone as well. It’s our one chance.” 

Hector had settled, considering it. While he wanted Rapunzel to get to the moonstone, he was now certain he didn’t want her touching the thing. At least not immediately. He’d been wavering on whether or not he actually wanted to sacrifice her for weeks, but he was certain (as of that moment) it would be, ultimately, the worse choice. 

Eventually, Adira decided to go and check on them, make sure they hadn’t wandered into the forest of no return or run across any enchanters. Though first, she wanted to secure Hector somewhere he wouldn’t run off from. 

Unfortunately for Adira, she’d given him free time with extra food and he’d befriended two raccoons (much as that pained him) three alley cats and a half dozen rats. As they walked he mimicked the chittering of a raccoon softly, only doing it when they saw raccoons. Same for the cats. 

When behind him she screamed and he heard a very angry raccoon hissing and chittering, he took the cue and began running. 

“Oh for fuck’s- _ HECTOR!” _

Hector weighed his options as he ran. Adira had always been the better fighter in one on one, and she’d more than likely been consistently fighting for the last twenty some years. He had not. He hadn’t been able to fight her off in his own home. Still…

When he heard her leap he turned, unsheathing his gauntlet-sword as he went, and brought it up in time to parry. He moved into a defensive position to accommodate her down bearing weight on instinct and pushed her back with his free hand. She did a backflip and landed on feet, nimble as a cat. 

“I thought you don’t like people.”

“They ain’t people they’re my kids.”

He flexed his sword hand and ran towards her, grinning. 

“You-” attack “will  _ not” _ parry, block, move forward “endanger” duck “em!” arms up and stance shift to accommodate her kick. She punched him in the face, intending to stun, and he rocked back, unable to block in time.

Blood dripped into his beard and lips. He licked the liquid before wiping it with the back of his hand, laughing. Fuck he’d missed this. 

She came at him and he somersaulted away from her, and twisted his body into different positions to continue evading her sword. At one point she backed up a step, and he took the opportunity to jump into a spin kick aimed at her head. When she caught his foot he simply swung in the opposite direction and aimed for her neck. 

It dropped her to her knees, and he was dragged with her, falling onto his back, it winded him, and he saw stars as his head cracked down, but she was stunned as well. He pulled his foot from her slackened hand and spun gracefully into a standing position. 

“So, what, you’re going to rescue them, then?”

He considered. Shook his head. Regretted that.

“I ain’t gonna get em. Least not  _ now. _ You ‘xpect that.”

“Belligerent of you, Hector.” He waved her off, tired.    
  


“I’ll be at th tree. Th princess is gonna need everythin she can get t’ survive th moonstone. An Edmund. He’s been in that castle alone. Th scrolls an books are still there, Was there oh, three years ago now. And nobody uses that highway anymore. They’re there.”

Adira struggled to her feet, and Hector offered a hand to help. She took it. 

“What was the fight just now about, again?”

“Escape, then anger fer my kids, then I just wanted t’ kick you in the head.”

“Fair enough.”

“Are you going to be alright at Zhan Tiri’s tree alone?”

“Should be? Used t’ live in it at one point afore I snagged the prince, remember?”

=+=+=+=

He was wrong. 

He’d been very wrong. 

He hadn’t considered the idea maybe the tree was waking up. After the blizzard, he should have considered it. Zhan Tiri exerting will through trees wasn’t even unheard of. 

First he’d been sprayed in the face with the hallucinogenic pollen, probably stumbled around for a few minutes and fell into the chasm with the tree’s heart. He thought he was reaching for a lever or something, and then dragged the spear out of where it resided. 

It wasn’t even for anything cool, he was just an utter idiot. 

Later, according to Eugene, it’d been six months since they left Corona, which meant for two months he’d been mind melded with Zhan Tiri.

Herself, and the tree. Who were two different entities but equally twisted and depraved. 

The first few days he was nothing but Zhan Tiri and the tree, and then he found a foothold in his mind and body, and the two entities became three entities fighting for a voice. 

Sometimes he saw through his eyes, spoke through his mouth. Sometimes it felt like he was half dreaming being a puppet. The tree spoke into his mind with a thousand hushed voices, and Zhan Tiri was that of a girl, maybe a teen, yelling or crooning. Her voice always stood out to him.

“Oh dear, dear Hector. More sap and vine than man now.” She crooned at one point. 

“.̵̣̤̾̓̔̑̄̇͊.̴̭͚̯̜̰̹̫̞͉̳͊͆̅̒͘͜.̷̧̝͖̤͎̘̦̼̫̼̊͜Ą̴̢̨̨̨̡͈̮͍̦̜̅̆̏̎̒m̶̧̙͇̬̥̊̉͑̊̕͝͝͝ ̵̖̟̼̳̰̹̽I̴͇̬̻͍̖͎̰͙̐̈́͑͝?̸̡͇̳͈̞̼̹̺͓̝̙̟̓́͋̉́͝ “

He groaned to the teen. Maybe she was fifteen, long hair, small horn-like buns, wisps of hair over a maturing face and circlet. He tightened his limp hand over the spear ever so slightly. The girl was a strange, faded purple-blue. Not right. Not right at all. 

“Yes my dear. You are. And soon, you won’t be able to live apart from the Great Tree. A few more days, and you’ll  _ be _ the tree. A sort of...dryad. If you will. A puppet the rest of your pathetic life.”

He clumsily swung the spear, his arm jerked back mid movement and it jostled him enough for a small, pained howl. He grinned at her anger.

“B̸̦̘̠̻͒̔̇̐e̴̢̧̯̦̗̺̒̈́̓̊͐̾̄͜e̶̗̞̞̙̙̠͋̒̾̍̍́͜͜n̶̪̎̓̑̾͗͒͑͜͠ ̸̭̝̙͚̯͕̟͔̦͈͊̓t̵̤̫̺̊̂͊͗͒͂͝ó̴̲̯͙̙̹̘͙͙͍̙̥͊̔̔ͅļ̷̘̱̬̈́̌̋͂̀̊̍́͝ͅd̵̳̙̼̰͕̲̹̩̩̟̖͌̎͂͠ ̴̨̳̺͈͉̖͈̙̇̋̈́̾́̑͆̄̕̚͠ͅͅs̴̭͇̣̼̣͈̗̈̊̿̈́͆̈́̓̓̈͠p̷̩̺̰͋̀̓̒i̸̡͛̽̿͋͆̕t̸̨̝̫̝̙̦̠͌̅͝e̸̥̖̺̼̟̝̰̖̐̿̾̓͛͛̌͒͠͝ ̸͖̬̬̺͍͕͑͛̆̉̔̕i̸͍̜̦̼͇̬̞̞̮͆s̸̡̩̠̝̺̞̹͕̗̈́̎̊̏͜͝͝ͅ ̴̪͕̯̥̐̽̓͋̑͋̚m̵̨̰͈̯̻̰̱̻͕̲̲̺̚y̷̮̙̯̞͂͆̍̔̏͊̈̋̓̓͝ ̴̰̞̩͖͍͊̃̈́͜͠b̴̡̥̘̒̔̅͠ḙ̷̲͍̮̮̝̰̲̽̉̏̽̚͜ś̴̖̠͕̝͇̩͎̤̩̑͛̅͜ͅt̴̛̛̞̊̽́̌ ̶̠͛͌̅̾̊̉́̑q̶̡̢̛̗͍̗͈̅͑͊̈̾͠͝ǘ̷̫̘͐̈́̉͘a̵͍̒̍̓l̷̛͈̹̭̣̯̝̮̦̦̮̋̂ͅͅĭ̷̩̪̥̬̫͇̺͔̠̠̟̭̚ṫ̴̡̖̘̬͈̻̤̮͇͍̣͐̀̍̈̏̐̀͌̐y̷̡̡͍̝̳̦̮̥̎̃̍ͅ”

He managed, before the tree snatched control again. 

=+=+=+=

_ “Hector! Stop fighting us, we want to help!”  _

_ “I̷̝͖̿́͒̈́f̴̯̱̾̃̄͌͂̓͘ ̸̯͔̊̀͋̽͋̄y̴̰̹̮̞͎̦͍̾͌͋ö̴̡̮̝̜̤̱͍̹́̈̓û̷̡̞̘͔͔̻̘͌̓̈́ͅ ̵̝̳̬̞̱͝g̸̨̛͕̳̈̒̒̈́ơ̷̰̲̝̋̈̑̓̓̌ͅ ̷̡̻̻̯̟̪̋̅̆̂͒̍̒̚f̷̰̗̝̱̲̬̋ͅő̷̙̻̟̬̙̒͊͘̕͝ŗ̴͉͗̏̈́̈w̷̢̧͙̘̩͚̝̓̽̾̈́ͅa̴͕̩̣̭̼͆̀͒͆̉ͅr̷̲͍̓̈́͌͂̍̈́͝d̶̟͇̻̉͗,̴̟̻̆̈͆̿͆ ̷͎̹͇̰̙̘̗͓̅͂͑̎̕p̸̠͔̫̈̀̍̾̈́͆͘r̶̲̫̩̈̂̐͂̈́ï̴̳̝̗̱ņ̶̛̪̞͓͙͔͖̿̔ċ̴͎̤̠͐͝ę̸͔͙͚́̆̃͑̋͘͝ś̸̢s̵̡̢̟̼̪͖̏̓̈͑͂̕,̴͉͈͉̒͗ ̵̬͓͉̱͖̘͐̓̐̔̂̂t̶̪̲̜̼̾̕h̵͉̽͑̊ĕ̴̫̮͔͈͈͉̽̎̓͐̃͘͜ ̷̡̛̭͚̏̋́̑̄̒͜m̴̰̲͇̼̹̞͗͌͂̓̈́̕ͅo̶͇͈͙̺̳̿̽̈̈o̷̫̹̤̾̍ñ̴̺͍̐̌̍̌̋s̵̗̥͕̫͔͂̒͗̈́̈́̈́͘̚͜t̸̨̓͐̂ỏ̶̗͖͖͚̐̑̂̈͜n̵̘̂ȩ̵̞̤̞̺̣͉́̌̾̈ ̵̞̑̈́̅̈́͛͜ͅͅw̵̛̩̏͋͒̓̍i̶̧̠͑̈͠l̶̡͇̑͐̿̽͘ͅl̶͇͚͕̓ ̸̨̻̂̅̀͊̓̆͐k̵͈̬͕̥̈́i̸̖̞̙͕̓l̵͉̝̲̱̿̋̐̌̓̿l̵̬͔̀ ̶̛̻̫̱̖͍̫̄͌̐̽̊͋͜͠ͅỵ̷͚͆̏̂̒ò̴̟̻̲̟͑̑͂̿̊͝u̸̢̥̳͇̺̺̺͂͗̾͑̈́͑̕ͅ.̵̳̤̳͗̿” _

_ “Rapunzel distract him, Cassandra, the spear, get his spear! We have to get it back in the heart!” _

When he was cut out of the vines he fainted. When the tree broke apart from the spear going back in, for a moment Hector thought he’d been speared himself. 

When he finally woke up properly, they were several days past the tree. Cassandra was sitting with him, her arm bandaged and her face drawn. 

“...Fuuuuuck” He groaned, closing his eyes again. Cassandra smacked his shoulder with her good hand and he hissed.

“Everythin’ hurts. Don touch me.”

“Your biturangs nearly killed Hook-Foot when he tried to pick you up after we cut you out of those vines.”

“Yea, they do that. I’m family.”

He felt..hollow. Scooped out. 

“Is she dead?”

“Who?”   
  


“Th tree.” 

“...If the spear didn’t kill her the first time, no. But I think she’s hurt.” Cassandra brushed a hand over the arm and winced. Hector looked from it to Cassandra’s face. He and the tree weren’t the only ones damaged from the fight. “Thanks though, for leaving the Hurt Incantation and the piece of the map out for us. You may have died without them.”

“Not died. Just…” he settled on the pillow. “Become one with the tree. Felt like it’d happened before. Loads of times. Heard em all. In m’ head.”

“...Are you going to be alright?”

He laughed a bit and it hurt so he stopped. 

“Probably. Where’s my biturangs an rhino?”

“Being cared for by Rapunzel and Eugene. I’m afraid to ask what you were told to do for a biturang pair. Those are rare.”

“Oh. Those two. Rescued em as shruggles-newborn babies-an raised em myself. They were two when I took Eugene.” 

“You realize you could count as a ‘beast master’ right?”

“Bah.” he made a face. “Master’d imply they’re not my equals. False. We’re partners. But I fight, they scout.”

“I’d say write a book but you technically did and there’s I suspect not even a  _ fraction _ of the weird shit you survived in it.”

He laughed again, and regretted it. 

“Cass, is he awake?” She looked to the door and back to Hector.

“Yea Eugene. Hector’s awake.” 

It was the strangest notion that the child he raised was about to lecture him. Role reversal but not the fun way. Eugene looked a mix of angry, anxious and tired.

“Ok. Eugene-” He tried to sit up and grimaced.

“I’m sorry.” he groaned as he sank back into the bed. 

“What happened?”

“Adira kidnapped me. Didn’t trust me. Earned her trust, kinda, there were magic pipers. We fought. She got nervous. I fought her. Draw. Went t’ th’ tree. Got possessed. Waited t take th sundrop, you freed me.”

“That explains everything and nothing all at once.” Eugene ran his hands through his hair and turned away before turning back to Hector. “I almost lost you. I might still, lose you. Adira said the tree’s influence will fade but you are  _ not _ ready for a fight if it comes down to it with dad.”

Hector snorted. He felt weak, vulnerable. Fuck he felt  _ fragile _ , but he wouldn’t admit it.

“Eugene I’m fine. Sore. But fine. I just need to rest. If it comes down to it, I’m gonna protect you an Rapunzel from Edmund.”

“And as your prince? I’m  _ commanding you _ to not.” Eugene’s voice was tight and brittle and Hector knew this wasn’t easy for him, and not something he was going to bend on. Hector’s lips thinned though. He’d known, eventually, this would happen. He’d go too far and Eugene would pull rank. It was more galling than he’d assumed. 

“Eugene, I ain’t yer dad.” 

“No, but you follow the royal family’s orders. And I’m telling you-”

“Hey kid. Word to th wise. If you’re in battle, you send in everyone. Y’don’t pull favorites. What makes more sense, death of an old soldier or death of a crown prince?”

“Why do I have to pick between your life and mine?!”   
  
“Cuz yer gonna be king, an that’s what you have to do.”   
  


“Nope. If Rapunzel taught me anything it’s that death doesn’t have to be an option.”

“Eugene-” He warned and Eugene covered his mouth, face drawn and eyes narrowed.

“Rest. And guess what? You’re not just an old soldier. You’re the feral knight of the brotherhood, you’re the guy who likes animals and books, and you’re the guy who raised me. So knock it off.”

“..fair enough.” Hector conceded, smiling at Eugene. “If it comes to a fight, I won’t enter. Fer now.”

=+=+=+=

  
  


He’d slept through the Hook-Hand and Hook-Foot thing. When he woke feeling able to sit up though, Hook-Foot was gone. 

=+=+=+=

“The House of Yesterday’s Tomorrow? That’s today. That’s literally the def’nition of today. Adira the frenchman is an idiot.”   
  
“I’d watch it Hector, you were possessed by a tree.”

When he was trapped in a mirror with Adira he gave her a look, arms folded. 

“Who’s the idiot now?”

“Hector I hate to point out, but you’re in the mirror with me.”

=+=+=+=

“...Princess the dogs’re fine. Coulda taken care of ‘em.”

“Weelll, I know but still, it’s not a good idea to let them run around, this place is fragile.”   
  
“Eh. Point taken.”

  
  


He, Cassandra, Lance and Shorty were turned to children when the top spun. He’d sidled too close and voila, babified. Lance and Cass were eight and six respectively, and he was probably close to four. 

The world was terrifying when you couldn’t fight back. When you didn’t know how.

But he had teeth and he had nails and he could jump and he could hide. Mostly Adira carried him, or Eugene. 

Eugene was loud, anxious, and generally terrifying. Adira didn’t know  _ how  _ to take care of him.

Cassandra would take his hand and pull him along when she wanted. He enjoyed the dogs though. 

When he grew up again he checked his hair, face and looked at the pups.

“Adira I want the pups.”   
  


“You’re not keeping the puppies. Not again. I am not doing this again. Why is it always dangerous animals with you.”

“It was a prince once!” 

“That prince knows how to kill someone eight different ways, he listed them so my point still stands.”

Rapunzel took his arm later that night. 

“Are you okay? You’ve been through a lot.”

He regarded her, and jerked a single nod. 

“Place is givin me th creeps though. But I’m fine.”

He felt like he had moving roots for bones and the place seemed frayed at the edges and...not right. Whispery. Like the tree. But, the whispers were out of him and he was still feeling gutted and hollowed out so...He was fine. 

=+=+=+=

When Rapunzel went missing he took a separate corridor. Lance had barely talked to him, and yes he needed to address that, but...well....taking care of whatever not right was in this place was more important. 

He hadn’t been able to keep the pups, sadly. When he’d woken up they’d been gone. 

“Hello, monsieur Hector.”

Hector spun around, sliding into a defensive stance, teeth bared in a snarl.

“Matthews. Thought I smelled a slimy, no good-”

“Language, monsieur.” He flickered from the human form to a green spirit and back. Hector blinked. 

“Whaaaat….”

“So, you can sense magic.”

“...Yea. It’s...A gift.”   
  


  
“A new gift.” 

Hector rolled his eyes. “Caught me.”

He stood.

“What d’ya want.”

“I simply want to help.” The man said, and for a second Hector saw sharpened teeth in the smile.

“Bull fuckin shit.”

“Language!”

“If ya don’t like that I got four other languages I can use. Take yer pick, you arschloch son of a putain.”

“...You really are the least mannered man I’ve ever met.”

  
“Obviously you never met Cassandra’s dad.”

Matthews looked like he was regretting the conversation.

“You’ve met Zhan Tiri.” Matthews tried again, attempting a different track. Hector raised an eyebrow.

“...sorta. Not a nice girl. Loved pissin me off.”

“She gave you powers.”

“I’m noticin.” He muttered, all of the house shifting, Matthews shifting. “If I start lookin ghoulish like you an her an them other follower I’m gonna jump off a cliff. Seriously. Green’s a good eyecolor, not a good skintone.”

Matthews flapped his arms and opened and closed his hands in frustration. Or maybe a fancy dance. Hector didn’t know or care.

“Why are you like this?” He squawked at Hector, who raised a hand and pantomimed brushing dust off his shoulder.

“You know what? I get asked that seven times a day. By various concerned individuals. Truth be told I was raised by wolves.”   
  
“...Really?”

Hector bit out a feral grin.

“No. But it seems like it, huh?”

The whispers around them got louder and Hector dropped his head in pain. “Ah, Rapunzel is succumbing to the dream I gave her. Good. Better she stay here and be happy where Zhan Tiri can have control than out and suffering.”

“...Yea. An that there is why I’m gonna say no to the implied offer. Rapunzel deserves a  _ life _ . All of them do. Zhan Tiri is a stupid fool.”

“Then I apologize, monsieur, but this is the part where I take you prisoner.”

“Not again.” He muttered as he felt vines wrap around his legs and yank him off balance onto his stomach.

Maybe he screamed. He preferred thinking he didn’t. 

“Dad?!”

“Hi Lance. Eugene.”

“Where’s Adira? Cassandra?” Lance called and Hector shook his head.   
  
“We were turned into kids yesterday and there were evil clones the day before and you’re asking me where they are?”

“Not. Helpful!” Lance shouted. 

  
  


“...Is that Rapunzel?”

“Mhm. In a dream. Matthews left for a bit but-”

“Yea. Met the fuck. Offered me a place with Zhan Tiri.”

“Why?” Both boys looked at him. He shrugged.

“Tree.”

Before they could ask anything else Adira was dragged into the room as well with vines and also slammed against the wall. 

“Adira!” Lance called, elated. Hector realized very quickly Lance liked her. 

Oh, he was going to need to break it to him gently she probably had nephew zoned him.

This, in retrospect, might have been part of why Lance wasn’t talking to him. Hector thudded his head against the wall behind him, closed his eyes and intended to rest.

If it wasn’t for ghost creep he may have. He had faith in Rapunzel.

“Will she want to leave paradise”

Ha. 

Like that girl would consider a cage paradise.

When they did escape, inevitably, Cassandra came out last, and Hector didn’t like her eyes.

When they were on the road again he touched her shoulder. 

“Are you alright?”

She paused, and smiled too bright.

“I’m fine.”   
  
  
She was lying, and he wasn’t in the right mindframe to do anything about it. His bones still itched. He still felt off.

He let it go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I know these bards never showed up in the show, I wanted to give Adira and Hector their own little 'what the fuck' bonding moment. 
> 
> I am aware this is more pathetic a way for him to be possessed, but I kinda found it funny so I used it. He redeems himself no worries. 
> 
> also yea I'm sorry. You set up the tree of zhan tiri, make it a sentient being with her apparent mind, put Hector as it's talk piece and they're mind linked (he felt the tree's pain), and you want me to believe _he wasn't effected by that later_? Yea...I don't know if that would have happened. Zhan Tiri could fuck with people's heads in just a short amount of time with limited resources to the point Rapunzel was still effected weeks after, and you mean to tell me a man who became one with her consciousness doesn't have some sort of side effects? 
> 
> Nope, nu-uh. We're playing with it. 
> 
> corrupted speech:
> 
> "Am I?"
> 
> "Been told spite is my best quality"
> 
> "If you go forward princess the moonstone will kill you."


	3. Regret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot of things to wish were done differently. There's a lot of things to wish you could do _now_
> 
> Hector's roots are spreading. Zhan Tiri won't shut up.

“...Rapunzel an Eugene are going to get help from a talking monkey prophet.” Hector repeats flatly, staring at Cassandra and Lance. “To get the final piece of a map because not only is it a map it’s also got an incantation on it. Maybe. Did I get everything?”

“Why can the monkey talk?” asked Adira, looking between them and Hector. “Excuse me there’s a talking monkey and we’re not talking about this.”   
  
“Horses can swordfight.” Hector sighed. “And there’s ghosts and magic shell houses and I was possessed by a tree. Adira do yourself a favor and don’t draw your line at talking monkeys. Trust me.”

“Dad, don’t talk to her like that.” Hector glanced at Lance and grit his teeth. This needed to be taken care of. 

“Cassandra, can you hunt?”

She flexed the withered hand and nodded grimly. “You want me to get more supplies with Adira?”

“Mm, mhm.”

Hector nodded his head over at his biturangs, who followed behind the caravan and now that Hector felt better, he followed with. More comfortable with them at the moment. “Can you help me brush them?”

He settled into a silence, allowing Lance the chance to say his piece. 

“What’s the deal with you and Adira-no, hold on. What’s up with you over everything?”

Lance burst out angrily, though his hands were still gentle on the biturang. 

Hector sighed, trying to think about how to do this. Word this. 

“What do you want me to go over first, because ‘everything’ covers, well,  _ everything” _

“Okay. Adira. One minute you two argue like the worst enemies and then the next you two are laughing together. An I-”

“You like her and you feel left behind. Or like a third wheel.” Hector finished. He sighed. 

“Adira and I were...more than a brotherhood. Her and I and…” He swallowed down the grief. “Quirin. If she sees you as anything, it’s a nephew. Not that you don’t have  _ excellent _ taste. But I’m gonna say I don’t think you’re going to get anywhere.”

“Man I wish someone had told me this sooner.” Lance said, groaning angrily. Hector didn’t know if Lance’s anger was at Hector, or Lance.

“I was possessed by a tree. She never reveals anything if she doesn’t think she has to. Her relationship to me is also something that...died. It’s personal and it still hurts. Arguing is the easy part.”

“Just going to what feels right, huh?” Lance asked, giving Hector a look. 

Hector paused, trying to find a trap, before nodding “Yea.”

I’m still mad at you right now.” Lance ground out, and Hector glanced up at him, then back down at the biturang under his hands, Streluna.    
  
“I deserve it. Watch your brush, kid. Gris ain’t a fan of half assed.”

“How’d you find these guys?”

“Orphans I adopted. They’re siblings, especially at this point.”   
  
“Now where have I heard this before?” Lance asked, and Hector was relieved to hear a faint laugh of amusement in the voice. 

“I like three things. Animals, books, and my kids.” Streluna got up and placed her paws on Hector’s shoulder as she began ‘grooming’ him herself. 

“And I need to apologize for abandonin you and not talkin to you sooner, Lance.” He smiled a bit, lost in a memory. “Remember how many questions you asked? Thought I’d go crazy. But...Answering them made me happy, cuz  _ you _ were happy.” Lance also always apologized. It was the best when, one day, Lance  _ didn’t _ apologize for asking about something. 

Eugene loved stories and Lance had loved knowledge.

He’d never talked so much willingly or been so tired from talking and he’d never regretted it. 

Lance smiled fondly for a moment as Gris settled in his lap, Lance petting her absently. “Yea. I remember. Must’ve driven everyone up the wall when I was in the house.” 

“I was biting people. Fairly sure you were not the most challenging one to deal with.”

“...you never talk about when you were a kid. Before your teens. Except to make up shit.”   
  


“The king before Edmund found three kids around his kingdom. Angry, wild, desperate. Trained them to protect his son, and that opal. My entire life is _ -was- _ dedicated to the kingdom, to Edmund, to Quirin and Adira.” It was so easy to fall into that language, that mindset. After all this time, it was like he’d never left. 

“And you made a choice.”   
  
“Yea.” he stared at the ground as Streluna continued scratching his shoulder gently and licking at his hair, comfortable in the presence of Hector and her sister and her strange hairless brother. “I hate Adira for her choice, and I hated myself for mine. Hated Quirin too. But we all made one. We all paid our dues, and I got over it.” mostly. Mostly got over it. 

“Is that true cuz one time you said you were raised by wombats after your circus parents died and Quirin found you and took you to the king.”

Hector smirked, but remained silent. 

“You still serve the royal family.” Comes after a bit. Lance is bitter and Hector tries not to give sudden wild, terrified laughter. He instead coughs into his hand. Did Lance think he didn’t care for him? That he was cover? It wasn’t true. Hector’d only seen a kid with too many questions and so much love and hurt when he adopted Lance. He and Eugene had been like brothers before, and brothers they’d remained. “Did you intend for me to be...like that?”

Hector took his gloves off and offered Lance the marked hand to inspect freely. “Nah. Cuz if I  _ did _ you’da been bound body an soul t’that cause. It never crossed my mind t’give you this…” 

When Lance raised an eyebrow and mirrored one of Hector’s own expressions, Hector rolled his eyes.    
  
“You know I gave up on all that when you two were seventeen? In jail and there was nothing to be done. I let Horace go. When he came back with the lost princess, it was Eugene the son of the book seller and brother of Lance Strongbow on my doorstep. Nobody else.” 

Lance’s eyes are wide. “You mean it?”

Hector wishes he’s not half lying when he says “I do.”

He wishes Lance didn’t look like he believed him.

“What else do you want to know?”

“Okay so magic. Do you have it?” 

This was, currently, complicated because he didn’t know and Lance’s eagerly curious face hurt. “I dunno. It may be residual from the tree an it might fade away in time. In any case it’s enough for me t get an offer to be a disciple of Zhan Tiri.”

Lance gasped. 

“Are you okay? You’re not...evil now are you?”

“If I’m evil I always was. I’m fine. I think the magic is why I recovered so fuckin fast, so that’s good, to a point.”

When Rapunzel gets back from talking to the monkey-who turns out is the ancient hero Demanitus-Hector’s a bit shocked when he just takes it in stride. Adira probably has questions but she doesn’t voice them. 

Living with the princess is, really, just one case of insanity after another. 

He also swallows grief, swallows the taste of sap in his mouth and watches Cassandra listen too attentively. Rapunzel has to unite the moonstone and sundrop. And Hector wishes this didn’t leave him roiling and hungry.

Eugene watches them both, concerned, and Hector doesn’t like his face, either. 

=+=+=+=

“So the monkey said one of the party is going to betray us Max. I-”

Hector overhears, as he’s trying to rest under a tree because he can’t sleep well anymore. Haunted by vines and roots and slow decay. 

“What do you have Eugene?”   
  


“Blondie! I-”

He listens intently and stays very still. 

“What, are you saying one of the people who’s been with us will betray us?”

Rapunzel asks softly after Eugene relates everything, and Hector feels cold.

“Blondie I don’t like this either but it’s either Cassandra or Hector. Neither of them are acting right. And Hector hasn’t been with us the whole journey.” 

“Eugene-Hector, your dad, he wouldn’t hurt us? Why would he? He raised you? And Cass-she’s my best friend-Neither of them are going to betray us. Nobody here would hurt me.” 

“What if they do it because they want to protect you? Cass’s hand became like that trying to get you to snap out of it, and Hector was at the tree in the first place to set up the incantation for you. And then nearly strangled you with a vine, so, I mean. Neither of them meant for any of that to happen.”

They walk out of Hector’s hearing and Hector rests his head on his knees, feeling half a step from a mental breakdown. 

He’s not betraying them. 

He  _ can’t. _

He’s too stubborn to let himself. 

“Hector do you want to talk about the tree now?” Adira asks as they get to the old gondolas, Hector remembering all the families evacuating over on them. He glances at her, then back to the distant castle. 

“Zhan Tiri is a she” he states, not looking at her, though his voice is pitched down. “And I was the tree. And now I think I took a piece of Zhan Tiri with me when I was uprooted.”

“Uprooted.” She asks and he knows what she’s trying to point out. 

He grits his teeth, shakes his head, sighs. 

“All I feel is a general connection to the tree, and randomly noticing magic being..well...magic. Matthews was an...issue, though.”

“What do you want me to do if you start sliding.”

“You know that answer, Adira.” He looked straight at her. “Just make it quick. Don’t wanna know what’d happen if I had time to think.”

The gondola ride is...eventful. 

Eventful as in Edmund himself comes hacking the gondola apart wearing his stupid bear head. Adira and Eugene and Rapunzel fight Edmund after Adira and Hector exchange looks. Hector had also started to move to attack, but it was only when Eugene shouts at him does he realize he’s breaking his promise to Eugene to hold off, and allows Adira to take over. 

Instead, Hector helps the horses, Pascal, his biturungs, Lance, Shorty and Cassandra out as the gondola string begins to snap and break. Cassandra and Lance grab his hands and hoist him through the window onto the ledge, Hector quietly glad they’d managed to get that far.

He turns around on the ledge though, as the king raises the battle-ax on Eugene, Hector seeing a private worst nightmare coming true.

_ “EDMUND DON’T KILL YOUR SON!”  _

Both of them stop and turn. Eugene’s eyes fill with horror as he looks at the mad man in the bear head next to him, and Edmund drops the ax-a millisecond before the gondola drops into the chasm below, taking Eugene and Edmund with it. Hector is frozen for several seconds before he takes a breath, and looks over the edge. 

They’re gesturing wildly at each other. Hector laughs purely out of stress. 

“Sister, this makes three people who survived a drop of over eighty feet. Can us Dark Kingdom people just do that?”

“I’m going to say normally no, brother. But you’re one of those people death herself is probably afraid of, Eugene was raised by you, and Edmund already lost an arm and bounced back within a day. So. Just you three.”

Lance looked down into the chasm. “Y’know I’m half curious but on the other hand…”   
  


Hector pats his arm. 

“If you survived that I’d ground you. If you didn’t I’d make your ghost pay for the funeral.”   
  
Lance is mock scandalized. “Your own son.”   
  
“I told Eugene that as well when he was fifteen. And believe me I’m going to make good on that promise.”

  
  


“He can help wash dishes at the Snuggly Duckling.” Lance’s eye twitches.    
  
“I don’t know what happens between getting the food out and getting the plates back but it ain’t pretty.”

Hector pats his arm sympathetically again. “I can describe five of the things but my friend, you don’t wanna know. Also four of them involve him.” They look at Shorty making little hopping motions as he flutters his hands and caws in his drunken way. 

“You’re right.” Lance says, transfixed. “I’d rather not know.” 

Later, as they walked through the rusting traps and looked for a way in, Lance looks over. 

“Hey, since you fell off a ledge and survived, does that mean we can hold you to the grounding?”

Adira snickers and Rapunzel laughs, tiredly. Even Cassandra snorts.

“Don’t worry Lance. I’ll make sure your dad stays out of trouble from now on. The Captain would love having someone to help polish the swords.” He knows Rapunzel’s joking but Hector reddens considerably and Adira outright laughs this time. 

“Adira!” She looks over at the annoyed shout with an eyebrow up.

“Don’t give what you cannot dish out, Hector.”

“I’m not dishing out boring sword polishing.”

He’s also not siccing the captain on innocent people. Not that Hector is innocent by any stretch but...Nobody deserves dealing with the captain of corona’s guard for more than a passing ‘good morning’.

When they get to the door, Hector is pulled in and the door shut behind him.

“Eugene…” He says, low warning in his voice. He doesn’t get much farther than that as he takes in Eugene’s pinched terror and the hulking king behind him. 

“It’s Horace, actually.” Eugene whispers, Hector nodding once, eyes on the king behind him. 

“Prince Horace. Why was I brought in and why were our companions left outside.”

Edmund walks to him, talking to himself all the while.

“My son and he looks more like a wild outlaw than a prince. Why did I let him take him again? Quirin was more suited.” 

Hector actually debates unsheathing his sword on Edmund. 

“Also, Hector, why didn’t you not fight in the beginning?” Eugene asks as he grabs his wrist, the sword wrist. Was it that obvious?

“Because I forgot. Until you called my name.” He admits softly. “I stopped, though.”

“You did.” Eugene admits, and Hector hears how grateful he is. Sees it in his smile and his eyes. “Thank you.”

“Hector!” Edmund booms and Edmund takes a breath. 

“My king?”

Edmund looks hurt “why wasn’t I in the book?”

“I- _ what _ -thats what you’re upset about?! A book?” Eugene just shrugs at him.

“Well, I’m hurt Horace doesn’t want to call me dad,” he fidgets. “But Hamuel also brought me the book a little bit ago, and I’m not dumb. Those are bedtime stories. Why aren’t there any with me?”

Hector sighs. “You’re the grumpy stone cloud. You know why. It just doesn’t look like you because Rapunzel based the likeness on your son and storm clouds.” Why are they talking about this? But Edmund brightens considerably so Hector stops caring so much. 

“I’m not calling you dad because I don’t know you, give me a break. You’ve been grumpy stone cloud my whole life.” 

Edmund smiled, turning to ramble his thoughts out loud. 

Hector and Eugene exchanged glances, and Hector looked down at Eugene’s other hand. The hand holding Adira’s sword. He looked at Eugene’s face again, and Eugene looked away. 

“Why did you drag me in?”

“He-I have to destroy the moonstone.” Eugene is curling in on himself, and Hector presses his hands on his shoulders. “Adira’s sword can.” The prince whispers, Hector finds himself growling softly at Edmund’s madness.

“Lookit me.” To his credit, Eugene does. “Do ya wanna?” Eugene shakes his head. “Then we get th others in here.” 

“...Not through the door,” Eugene is pleading and it throws Hector. Eugene doesn’t plead. Especially not with him. They glance over at Edmund, who’s talking to himself and hasn’t noticed they haven’t quite moved from the area. “I don’t trust this, and I won’t put Rapunzel or the others in immediate danger.” 

Hector has to agree. He is also glad Eugene didn’t grab Adira as well. She knows the castle as well as he does, she can get the others in just fine.

They follow Edmund, Hector keeping two steps behind Eugene. When Edmund calls Eugene ‘son’ Eugene stiffens. Hector wishes he could say he just didn’t react fast enough but the truth is he didn’t even move.

“You  _ don’t _ have a right to call me that! You might be my birth father but you didn’t raise me, you didn’t take care of me. You, for twenty-five years, was a character in a fairy tale and a bird and letters!” He held up his arm, which had his mother’s pendant wrapped around the wrist and his braids shifted. Hector’s cloak moved with Eugene’s movements. 

“I don’t even know  _ her _ well. You two weren’t real to me until maybe six months ago!”

It’s honest and it’s heartbreaking. Hector can see both of them crumble. He hates it as well, that this is even happening. Hates that despite his best efforts Eugene doesn’t want this. A part of him had hoped Eugene would feel like he’d come home, but they’d never gone beyond the Great Tree. 

Eugene points at Hector, who panics for a moment. 

“Not even  _ he _ called me son.” well...not directly to Eugene’s face. Hector breaths, smells earth and rot and the tree, and forces past the panic. 

“Oh I see,” Edmund murmurs out loud “So it’s not rejection it’s simply not being used to the affection. I can win his love yet!” Hector moves in front of Eugene because although he knows the man has never killed anybody, he’s also aware Eugene knows how and is probably getting close to regicide. Hector has no intention of fighting, simply acting as a body shield and grounding point to Eugene. 

“Yer majesties. Edmund. It’s been a long day, it’s been a long journey. Nobody’s thinkin straight.”

He fixes Edmund with a stare. “An you ain’t used t’the company, my king. Did you forget how to use your thought speak again, Edmund?”

Edmund had struggled with it since an accident in their teens when he’d tried to impress another princess. Not Miette, but a friend of hers. His ability to register when he was thinking inside his mind and when he wasn’t had been ruined. Quirin and Adira were fairly good about helping him keep it to himself, Hector had always preferred walking away. 

Except right now that wasn’t an option. 

Edmund closes his eyes and takes a breath. “It’s been so long, Hector.”

It has. 

“We can talk more when th Sundrop gets in. Let’s open that door.” 

“Absolutely not. Did you put my son up to this?” 

The urge to stab the man was suddenly strong enough Hector grabbed his own wrist to keep himself from attacking.

Hector’s eyes glanced down as a small tug on his boot was felt, and noticed Pascal. Well...Pascal’s  _ eyes. _ Carefully he slid the foot behind him to Eugene and put Pascal on Eugene’s foot before moving forward and getting close to Edmund. “Do you wanna talk?” When he hesitates Hector shrugs. “Horace, I think, needs to take a second.”

“Horace” needed several seconds. Maybe a month. Maybe a year. 

Hector had referred to Edmund as a ‘good man’ but that man had just tried to cut his son’s head off only a few hours ago, and was ignoring Eugene’s boundaries as though nothing had happened between them, as though he’d never left as an infant.

They walked to the Moonstone History Hall, and Hector stared at the many, many kings and the queen in their windows. 

“You took my son. In more ways than one.”

Yes well. Whose fault was it? 

“...Not from a lack of trying, Edmund. But the more time wore on the more he came to resent you on his own. Eventually I pulled back an let ‘im go his own path. No use t try forcin it if I didn’t know I  _ needed _ to.” 

Hector allowed some of his grief and regret to color his voice, to bleed into his actions. Edmund grabbed him with his one remaining arm, grief stricken and angry as well. 

“ _ I  _ am his father! He should refer to me as such!”

Hector bit back the angry retort that if Eugene was rejecting him that was a clear indication Edmund didn’t actually get to force the issue. It was Eugene’s idea. Instead he settles on another tactic. He just pulled away from Edmund. 

“Are Quirin, Adira and I blood related?” 

Edmund grimaced. 

“With what you three often got up to I hope not.” Hector ignored that. 

“We ain’t related but we referred t each other as brother or sister.” He paused and added with a smirk because he was a shit and Edmund deserved it “or lover.” Edmund grimaced again. “But this was from years an years of building the relationships.” He paused. “I have a son of my own. Lance. He an Eu-er- _ Horace _ consider themselves blood brothers practically. Again, that took time.”

He let Edmund consider it. Edmund muttered his thoughts out as Hector wandered through the hall, feeling nostalgic sadness. 

He knew the stories of each of the people in the windows. Could recite all of their creeds in his sleep, had memorized their fighting styles and their own Brotherhoods. 

Once, he’d been proud to be part of that legacy. Proud to be one of the Brotherhood. And he still was, really! He pressed the marked hand on Edmund’s window. He’d grown beyond this legacy. It wasn’t a coincidence he’d never wanted Eugene or Lance to be brotherhood, wasn’t a coincidence that Quirin had kept that heritage from Varian.

Let the Brotherhood die with them, break the cycle. 

_ “They call Edmund the best of you? Edmund? Oh dear, my dear. It’s you. You’re the best of them all.”  _

The teenaged voice of Zhan Tiri whispered in his mind, as though giving him a great and terrible secret. He simply scowled, eyes flicking to the side, wondering if she was there. Felt like it. 

“Bull fuckin shit.” He muttered. 

Just then the rocks began coming up through the floor again. He and Edmund both return to the statue hall, quickly. 

“You tricked me!”

“Fuck off! We needed to talk!”

Cassandra fights beside him as the ghosts of the old royal family come at them. 

“So you’re from this Kingdom? You know, I can see it.”

“Less tauntin more fightin girl.” 

She used him as a jumping board to slice the head off a ghost, who simply crawled out of the statue again. 

“Edmund is one armed-how for one and why is he such a good fighter?” 

“He held th stone longer than you touched Rapunzel’s hair, an twenty five years is a very long time to practice fighting with one arm.” 

Her face paled, Hector finding himself protecting her from getting gutted by the ghost of Queen Calypsa. 

“Yer majesties” he muttered as an apology every time he made one vanish. 

At some point the doors opened, at some point Adira was wrestling Hector to the ground. 

(“Your eyes went like they were in the tree, Hector”)

At some point Cassandra took the moonstone. 

At some point Hector got his head back from the whispers and shoved Adira off. 

“If that happens again you better just stab me.” He mentions conversationally. She glares at him, slaps him. He’s stunned but not from the slap. That was just them. He’s stunned from the tear tracks in her face paint and the grime of the road and fighting. 

“If Quirin really is gone you’re the only one I have left!” It’s not love it’s clinging to pieces of former lives. He knows, and he can see she does as well. 

“Plus, you’re the princess’s body guard and she hasn’t released you from service.”

He snorts, accepting the fact. 

He ignores Edmund and kneels at a broken Rapunzel’s feet. “I’m sorry, princess. It won’t happen again.” He expects her to shout at him, to cry out about losing Cassandra, about him keeping his problems to himself, hell, he's fully expecting another slap, but she doesn’t. She kneels before him and mirrors his stance. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to help you, Hector. You or Eugene or Lance or-” 

He takes her hands after a moment, inspects them quietly. They’re rough, rough and worked as his but for different reasons. He hates Gothel with a sudden horrid passion, and while he feels for Cassandra, she escaped being a slave kept chained by the guilt of a parent over a child.

The Captain was a fuck up, but he gave Cassandra a life. He took care of her. And Hector can’t actually hate that part. 

“Let’s both promise to be better, then, Princess.” 

The watery smile she gives him is worth it. 

Later, right before they leave he has to tell Edmund to stop hugging “my favorite knight’s son”. It was weird and Lance was panicking. 

=+=+=+=

Edmund and Adira elect to stay in the Dark Kingdom for the time being. Ulf the mime pub thug tells everyone invaders have shown up, and Hector feels a strange sense of bitterness. When he asks Edmund if he’s sure, Edmund mentions he wants to get some things sorted first, but he and Adira promise to come join them in Corona in time for Eugene’s twenty seventh birthday. 

Hector smiles when Eugene responds somewhat positively to this. It gives them time, and time is good.

There are some adventures on the way back, because of course, but Hector doesn’t mind. He catches up with Eugene and he feels...settled. At one point, a day or so from Corona, he talks to Eugene. 

“So you went to get Stalyan the lost princess’s crown because that’s all she would accept to break your engagement.”

“Dad, Stalyan’s...a  _ lot.  _ Like, a lot a lot a  _ lot.  _ I seriously wasn’t ready for that level of commitment.” 

“Well, it worked out so I won’t give you that much shit.”

They’d lapsed into silence for a moment before Eugene broaches the Dark Kingdom. 

“He showed me mom’s portrait. She was..she looks like me.Well, I mean. So does he but...” He hesitated. “She looked kind.”

Hector smiled fondly as he leaned against the hot air balloon’s side. “If anyone was the best of our group, it was your mother, kid. If you want to know, you’re more like her than you are like Edmund.”

“I have his bull headedness though.” 

“Oh yea. Yea that’s all him.” 

Hector closed his eyes, feeling the sunlight and wind.

“You’re more compassionate and just than either of them, though.”

“How do you figure?”

Hector cracked open an eye and side eyed Eugene.

“Name me  _ one  _ royal who’d have told someone on my skill level and my status to stand down while they went to fight in their stead, no matter the circumstances. Name me one. I’m waitin.”

Eugene smiled a little bashfully. 

“Not much of a king, am I?”

“Heh. You’re more of one than you give yerself credit, kid.”

However...Hector raised a finger. “Just make sure you don’t risk yer life over the wrong thing. We don’t gotta argue what I am, but...think on it.” 

“...I know.”

“By the way, if you ever think about letting yourself fall like that just know Snuggly Duckling needs a dish boy. And next time I’m makin you do that for a year. Not a month.”   
  
“Oh come on! Do you know what Shorty does to those plates?!”

=+=+=+=

“....Varian I leave you alone for a year and you start running around with charcoal dust on your chin. Also, we raised you better than that...vomit of an outfit.”

Is, perhaps, not the best thing to say to Quirin’s wayward child when they meet him again. 

“You weren’t here!” Varian hisses at him. “When I got out of jail you weren’t here!”

Alright, fair. But still. Hector rubs his temples.

“I was kinda kidnapped. I don’t really know what to tell you.”

  
  


“Um, Hector, while the outfit is definitely something to comment on, Blondie’s parents don’t remember her, there’s enslavement, and Cassandra’s ex is currently acting king. I dunno. Priorities?”

Hector shrugged and looked Andrew up and down. “So you’re the tart.”

In retrospect perhaps that particular comment wasn’t the smartest out of his mouth.

Realizing his two boys were hair-sexual (okay he knew this already with Eugene but…) through Andrew was...also...not what he was expecting. 

“So much foliage!”

“Look at that volume.”

“Andy baby, do not make a kissy face at my children”

Hector cuts in, and yes, fine, maybe the hair comment rankles because damnit his hair is great still. Forty something and no grey? Come on.

Andrew looks him over. “How old are you?” Hector shrugs.

“Forties. Sweetie I’m a twelve, you’re a seven.” Does he relish talking down to Andrew. A little. The look on the man’s face is amazing.

Later they find the small resistance. It’s nice to see them. 

“How could she have run off on her own like that?! If I know Rapunzel-”   
  
“-She’s always runnin off on her own like that.” Hector cuts in with a sigh, leaning against the wall and watching Eugene knowingly. Eugene spins around, eyes narrowed.

“We have to get her.”

Hector grins, slow and feral. “Kay.”

=+=+=+=

Honestly calling Andrew a ‘tart’ is probably what got him in the smallest cell with enough chains on him to make a magician faint.

“Hector.”

“Varian.”

He greets later, the moon high in the sky and bathing his cell in a light that makes his bones ache. The boy is still sporting the charcoal on his chin, and he’s trying very hard to look intimidating, but he also looks scared. Hector has half a mind to tell Varian to drop it, because he’s too gentle to be as fucked as Hector is, as twisted as he is.

Even after prison he’s still pretty much, personality wise, the same, and Hector wonders at precise cost. 

“Why are you like this?” Varian bursts out. “You ruin everything! And you’re unpredictable and mean-I like Andrew, he’s my friend! he kept me safe in prison. He’s nice, he didn’t let anyone hurt me! All he wanted was my alchemy.” Because nobody ever remembers to shackle legs, Hector gets up from his seat by the window and goes to the door, looking into Varian’s eyes. Because this kid is now his height.

“Even if nobody else remembers or blames you,  _ you  _ still remember.  _ You  _ still blame you.” It’s an old lesson he’d known since he was young. “The point of no return is when that? Don’t bother you.” He eyes the kid who’s starting to cry, head against the bars on the door, sobs silent. 

“Quirin ain’t just yer fault.” His own voice is wobbling despite his attempts to stay steady. “An there hasn’t been a day I haven’t hated myself for what happened. Blamed myself for not steppin in. You did a hell of a bad thing. But Varian, it ain’t th worst thing.”

“What should I do?”

“Mebbe confront Andrew? Or talk to Rapunzel. What feels right?” Hector is pragmatic to keep from falling apart, and Varian looks at him with massive doe-eyes.

“I still want to hurt you, and her, and everyone.”   
  
“Yea...know the feeling.” Hector rolled his eyes. “Just...try not to.”

When he gets out he throws Andrew in a river after cutting off his hair. He’d found him floating around with a bubble around his head. The opportunity is way, way too good.

“You feral-!” Is all Andrew can get before the water cuts him off. 

“Bye, you manipulative lil tart.” Hector calls cheerfully as he waves the man bobbing down the river. 

  
  
  


Quirin is freed. 

Hector lets him have his space, but three days later, as Hector is getting his bookstore back in order from his... _ trip… _ Quirin comes in.

They end up hugging for a few moments, very tightly before Quirin rests his forehead against Hector’s.

“I shoulda told you.” Hector murmurs. “I...I missed ya.” There’d been no time to grieve for Quirin, really, so later he knew the floodgates would pour. “Quirin. I need t’ tell ya... _ everythin _ ”

=+=+=+=

“So king crazy cakes is here, with this sash he could have given me back then and I-” Eugene tosses his hands in the air as Hector repairs a book’s spine, listening and amused. “I think he wants to spend bonding time!”

“What’s wrong with that?” Hector asks absently, giving Eugene an avenue to help himself with his agitation. “Isn’t it a good thing he wants to connect?”

“I-well, yea. But it’s weird to me. And terrifying. Frankly I don’t know if I want to forgive him.” At Hector’s raised eyebrow he adds an amendment of “yet.” 

“Eugene, that’s something you need to talk to him about. Make him respect your boundaries and your feelings.” Hector inspects the book with a critical eye. East of the Sun West of Moonlight. Good book. And it’s looking better than new now. “Let him know you can’t warm up to him quickly. But you can’t do that if you don’t stay in the same room and talk to him.”

In the end, Eugene does go, and does grow a little closer to Edmund. Who, for his immense credit, is calling him Eugene. 

Later, Edmund comes into the bookstore, and brushes his hands over every piece of woodwork with a moon mark or piece of art from their country he sees. 

“I never abandoned th kingdom.” Hector states, head bowed. “I didn’t turn m’ back.”

“I know that now Hector. I know.”

=+=+=+=

Edmund has stayed, and Adira is now with Quirin and Varian, and Hector is happy to see Edmund trying with Eugene. 

His dreams were swallowed by the teenaged girl. Except sometimes she looked nine years old. Still off, though.

She kept making offers. Or showed him nightmares of him being consumed by the forest magic inside him and becoming another Great Tree. 

Sometimes she shows him beautiful alternate worlds. King Horace has hair like a full moon and eyes an ice blue. His queen a girl with hair like a buttercup and eyes a vibrant green. A new Brotherhood, happy to serve.

Sometimes it’s a maddened Hector killing everyone with black rocks.

Suffice to say he doesn’t sleep well, and it becomes a habit to comb out small vines and branches growing in his hair each morning, the dark circles around his eyes more pronounced each day. 

It was getting more difficult to refuse her offer to join her and learn to wield his new magic, simply by the devastation of being worn down each night. 

One morning he finds Edmund sitting at the kitchen table with two cups of traditional wassail in front of him. 

“My king-”

“Hector. It’s just Edmund. Sit. Talk.”

“Where’s Lance.”

“He’s at the Snuggly Duckling. You slept in. Now.” Edmund gestures at the chair. “Sit.”

He does. The wassail is good and the company, though odd, is welcome. Among the talk of Eugene (“Once, he may have been eleven, I told him to stay away from some weird flower I’d never seen before. He comes home three hours later shrieking over being ugly. I look over and his hair’s the exact shade of pumpkin juice! I have no idea what to do so I just go ‘I take it you didn’t listen’ and you’d have thought I killed Lance in front of him.”) Hector does his best to explain the tree, but even with Adira trying to help, and Quirin, they don’t know much. Edmund doesn’t know either.

Zhan Tiri does, and she doubles her attempts. He now notices the teenager out of the corner of his eye, calling his name and trying to talk to him.

Later, Rapunzel shows up asking about werewolves. Hector shakes his head with a laugh, realizes she’s not joking, decides this isn’t what he wants to draw his line of acceptable at, and informs her he’s “half tree, not half dog.” before closing the door.

It turns out the werewolf is one of the girls Lance had taken to. 

“Y’know what? It makes about as much sense as anything else in our lives.” Hector comments to Lance calmly later. The girls are talking quietly in the corner of the bookstore while petting one of his biturangs and cats. With the Captain and the king and queen still suffering memory loss, Hector has taken a few liberties.

“What do you want to do, Lance?”

“I...okay don’t tell them but the second that treehouse is totally fixed I’m adopting them and we’re moving in.”

Hector only grins.

“That’s my boy. Shit...I’m a grandfather.”

Somehow, this is the  _ best _ news.

Two days later, he pulls lady’s lace from behind his ears. There’s no pain, and at this point he just takes it in stride.

“You’re not going to listen to me, are you?” The girl sighs from her seat on his bed. He shrugs, deciding to humor her for once.

“You need to give me a good reason for why I should.”

“You’re a sapling Hector. Instead of becoming part of the tree, you became it’s child.”

“....well fuck.” It made sense. “Am I going to get the sudden urge to plant myself in the forest?”

“Mmm...I suppose when you die that will happen. If I want it to.”

“So this is connected to you.”

“It’s connected to many things. Are you finally ready to learn what you can do?”

He leans against the dresser holding his washbasin and shrugs, arms folded, deciding to at least get an idea what he can do. “I’ll humor you for now.”

Her face becomes wide and toad like with the smile and bulging eyes. He doesn’t particularly like it. 

“Wonderful. Let’s begin.”

=+=+=+=

When Rapunzel makes the competition, Hector babysits her amnesiatic parents. 

Adira and Quirin both tell him in no uncertain terms he’s an unknown variable with the sapling status, and Hector doesn’t argue-much.

By the time they get back from fighting mummies because amazingly it turns out the treasure is  _ cursed,  _ Hector has a feeling the king and queen have more than a passing interest, and when Adira finds out, she laughs. 

“So Frederick loves animals and collects eggs and claws and his wife adores danger. Well. I wish you three the best of happiness!” 

“Adira I can’t stand either of them. Stop laughing! Adira!”

=+=+=+=

To his ire he’d been relegated royal babysitter now, which was just as well because four months and nothing happening was well needed and well deserved. 

Although Varian was working hard to get the king and queen back (who by this point remembered Rapunzel somewhat but couldn’t fathom how they’d been together long enough to have her-which Hector also questioned) to normal and in love with each other again, Hector was starting to wish they could just leave them like this. 

Frederick, when he was nervous and shy and talking excitedly about a new bird he’d seen that day and Arianna discussing old legends and daring plans (a few of which she actually attempted) and both of them asking him to show them tricks (Frederick loved Hector growing flowers from his palm, a spell Zhan Tiri had taught him and he’d mostly mastered, and Arianna loved when he showed her how to make trick shots with throwing knives) or tell them stories. 

One day as he was handing her parents back to her, Rapunzel asked about the time Eugene and Lance were first arrested, officially arrested, at seventeen, and haltingly explained she’d been back in time. Hector’d raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “That explains everything.” He smiled faintly to her. 

“He musta been anxious to really meet you, Rapunzel. I woulda been.”

=+=+=+=

“Do you know, I have Cassandra, she’s such a willing student. Better than you.”

He blinks sweat away from his eyes as his body twitches from over exertion, the holly branches along his arms moving and groaning. He heaves himself to his feet, swaying. 

“Mebbe she is. She, at least,  _ chose _ th moonstone. I could care less about bein overshadowed.”

“This is true.”

=+=+=+=

So the crazy king with the seal tried to marry Arianna on a ship and there was an issue with a sea serpent. 

Sadly they also got their memories back and apologized to Hector for their behaviors. He’d waved them off. 

Frederick went back to being deciding Hector was on his shit list, and Hector went back to protecting Rapunzel.

He does wonder, briefly, what that would have been like, being with them, but waves it off.

The dreams now include them, though, and it’s unsettling how well Zhan Tiri seems to know him now. He proceeds to stop talking to her, and ignores the offers of more spells.

=+=+=+=

“...Someone needs to really write down all this magic sea related shit. First seashell houses, now seashell pendants….Fer fuck’s sake.”

=+=+=+=

Hector isn’t surprised with the red rocks showing him the teenaged Zhan Tiri or images of himself mad with power. His maddened self taunting him isn’t surprising either. 

It’s a vision of Eugene and Lance disowning him and walking away, finally, that breaks him. Mentally he notes it’s similar to when Adira and Quirin walked away from him. Mentally he notes fear vision Eugene is wearing Edmund’s crown. 

  
  


=+=+=+=

“Hector you’re not allowed to kill Nigel over trying to kill a dragon, that’s an order.”

“Edmund, it’s a dragon! Dragons! I want thirty.”

“...Why is it always the dangerous beasts, with you?”

“DRAGONS.”

=+=+=+=

It turned out the Captain had gotten his memories back and fled. Hector went to search for Cassandra himself. 

He found her, skulking around a few days east of Corona. 

“Wanna talk.” He called to an empty campground. 

“Do you want to join my cause?”

He held up an old, old book. “You wanna know about Mama Gothel?”

She hesitated. “...What do you know about her?”

“She was a pupil of Demanitus and corrupted.” he pulls a vine from one of his braids. “I’m finding I can relate to a point.”

When they sit down he places a wicker basket between them. “Siegmund misses you.” She glares at him and folds her arms. 

“He kidnapped me.”

“He’s a damn fool but given I doubt he knew when Gothel would come for ya- _ if  _ Gothel would, and leavin a lil girl in a house like that is amazingly, not a line the man has ever crossed.” Her scowl deepened and he opened the basket.

“You recognize the food?”

“...Mama made this for me. Sometimes. When she was happy…”

He doubted Gothel had made anything for Cassandra, and figured it was more likely she’d given the girl anything she didn’t finish. 

“Dark Kingdom ware. I made this for my boys. I made this for you. Figured Siegmund wouldn’t have known how.”

Carefully, Cassandra reaches into the basket and pulls the sarmale from within, her mouth watering over the cabbage rolls. Hector watches her quietly. She pulls more food from the basket, in between eating as quickly as she can. She doesn’t look like she’s eaten much in any case.

“Yer mum was from the Dark Kingdom. I don’t know  _ much _ but I’m guessin she lived in the tree a time, guessin she was the one translatin what we used later.” He let Cassandra have that. For all he knows, it’s true. Perhaps from before Gothel turned on Demanitus.

“Cassandra,” He tries to keep his tone calm. “You’re hurtin. Y’should talk to someone.”

Cassandra stops eating and glares at him. 

“Are you talking to anyone about the tree stuff?”   
  
“Yea, actually. I am.”   
  
“...Oh...Well...then let’s talk.”

Cassandra lets loose all of her anger in between angry eating, asking what the dishes were called, and inviting Hector to eat with her, and honestly it’s more than Hector was expecting. He sits through it though, lets it come, and when she’s done and the clearing is a  _ wreck _ with black stones he nudges the basket closer. 

“Here, wash away that bitter taste with juice.” She turns a glare to him.

“Don’t make fun of me!”

  
  
“I ain’t. Just sayin. That’s a wave of anger.”

She concedes, and looks at the food then at him. “I wouldn’t mind if you stuck around.”

“...I know.” He risks making her bitter again, angry and hurting, so he’s careful. 

“Lance adopted two girls. Angry an Red. I’m a grandpa!”

Cassandra’s eyes widen before she smiles slightly. “So you don’t want to leave Lance floundering.”

“Would you?”

“No.”

Hector is relieved to see she means it. Still, because of everything, they fight. When Hector gets home, he only states he couldn’t convince her. 

She kept the basket and the leftovers. 

When he sees the captain, he sucker punches him. 

Honestly, the night in the cell is the best sleep he had in months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really love the idea of Hector being obsessed with animals, and found it hilarious as I realized he's a mix of Arianna's and Frederick's base personalities. So I leaned into it slightly. 
> 
> The status of sapling won't come into full effect till later, you know where. Because at that point, he won't be able to say no.
> 
> *I’ve been modeling some of the dark kingdom on Romanian things. If Corona is Germany then why can’t the Dark Kingdom be Romania?


	4. Peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's doom, and decay and betrayal, and there's an ending of a story. 
> 
> Bittersweet, but the sweeter side. 
> 
> Hector is happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> small warning of animal abuse here, skip the part where Hector is in the mind trap, but when you see "when it's time to tip his hand" you're good

Varian was a brilliant, wonderful child. Hector had gone to Quirin looking for some help with sleeping, and Varian had heard about the apparent mind link between Hector and Zhan Tiri. When they paused in conversation, Varian had sidled in.

“Have you ever tried getting into her head?”

“...what?”

Varian blushed and began babbling, but Hector raised up a hand. “No. I didn’t mean it like that. Keep talkin.” Varian’s eyes widened and he smiled bashfully.

“O-oh. Well...you’re a sapling or seedling or whatever right, and the tree was it’s own entity before Zhan Tiri became one with it and corrupted it. You said there were two minds. The tree’s, and Zhan Tiri’s. You’re probably getting stuff from the tree as well as Zhan Tiri…” He trailed off and Hector nodded, prompting him to continue.

“So why not try using the connection to talk to the tree, and then Zhan Tiri? If they can communicate with you, you should be able to communicate with them.”

Quirin and Hector looked at each other. “That’s brilliant, son.” Quirin told Varian, and Varian beamed. Hector smiled before sighing.

“I don’t know _how._ Zhan Tiri was spoonfeeding the lessons.” Quirin gave him a look and Hector shrugged. He’d handled it. 

“Okay, um...first is she here?” 

“No.” Quirin knew Hector’s lying tells, and relaxed when he noted Hector wasn’t doing any of them. Sometimes, it paid off having someone who knew him so well, because he doubted anyone would have let that go if they hadn’t spent decades with him. 

“Right....Hector why not come over in a few days? A week or two. I have an idea for how to help.”

“...Eugene’s birthday is in two weeks. I’ll come a couple days after that. Sound good?”

Varian gave him a thumbs up with a grin and a laugh. 

When he was walking out of the house, Adira was waiting.

“You’ve been pulling away, Hector.”

“I’m workin on it.” At her glare he softened his tone. “I’m sorry.”

“I let you go to the tree alone. If anyone’s sorry, it’s me.”

They stand apart and Hector picks at the small branches on his wrist while Adira looks at her sword. 

“We’re certainly a pair, aren’t we?” she asks finally as the binturongs nuzzle around them, curious as to what Hector’s hold up is. Hector only laughs. Certainly one way Adira could have put it. 

“Yea, yea we are. Least we’re not _just_ a pair.” As one they look at the cottage, and Adira smiles fondly. 

“All our times together, and he’s become truly a brother. As have you. And yet...I’m not bitter. Because...we’re the Brotherhood. And that’s enough.”

“Nothing can take that bond, no.” He agrees. “And you’re right. We’re past bitterness. It just...shifted. It’s still as meaningful.”

Hector’s happy, for the first time in a while, and it feels good to go over the new structures of their relationship and simply talk. He loves them still, but also not like before. 

“The king is considering going back to the kingdom when all of this is over. I’m going back with him.” Adira mentions. “Will you?”

Hector has no idea. 

=+=+=+=

“Er-Hector-why are you in the armory?”

“Rapunzel grounded me and now that you’re here I’m making good on it.”

Hector looked up from where he was sitting on a bench with oil and a rag and all of the spare swords. His hair was braided out of his face so he could work without getting oil on his face. Old tunic and breeches, old shoes. Nothing he’d be upset got ruined.

“You really don’t have to-”  
  
“That’s what the princess said. But believe me when I tell you, this is better than Lance jumping off a tower to prove something only he understands.”

“... _what?!”_

“I made Eugene wash dishes in the Snuggly Duckling. Only fair.”

  
  
“No. The only fair thing is washing them too.”

“You evidently have never given me a dare.” He’d done it, and survived. For everyone’s jokes, it actually hadn’t been that bad. Though that was also what convinced Hector Shorty was just...not human. 

The captain sat beside him and picked up a sword and extra cleaning equipment. “I don’t get you Hector.” He admitted as he cleaned the blade. “You’re impulsive and bloodthirsty but well-read with several contingency plans. I’ve seen you pace and scream from boredom, and then the next day sit for six hours waiting for a bird to settle on your shoulder. You don’t seem to like authority but at the same time I’ve never met anyone so loyal to their country, royalty or cause. I’m not sure if the ‘I don’t take care of myself’ air is on purpose, but I also know braids, moustache and beard take time to make look good.”

Hector listened with a bit of a bemused smile. “If I didn’t know better’d I say you respected me, captain.” 

Or was unhealthily obsessed. Either or. 

The captain gave him a look. “Respect yes. Trust no. And they’re different.”  
  
Hector put down the sword, picked up a lance. “They are.” He agreed. “I own a bookstore, I know the difference. I never thought you were a fan of mine.”

”You should be locked up, but you’ve been a help the last few years.”

”my boys are better.”

“Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Deflect.”

Hector shrugs. “It’s Eugene’s birthday today.” He states instead of anything about himself, knowing it’s deflecting but not caring. “An Rapunzel is holdin a surprise birthday party.” He watches his reflection. He’s got leaves and flowers along his neck now. The eyes are his usual, at least. 

“Instead of helpin decoratin I’m down here cleaning weapons because I can barely stand the villages, let alone the crowd up there. An that’s just me, Captain. I don’t like people, or noise, or bein friendly.” He gets up to get the bows and arrows.

“But I love Eugene an Rapunzel an Lance an that’s enough.”

There’s silence for a time, and Hector notices the captain is about as tired looking as he is. It doesn’t warm Hector up to him, but at least it’s a sign the man isn’t totally beyond redeeming. 

“You’re quite good at weapons cleaning.” The captain comments. 

“Y’wanna know how often I had to when I was a teenager? Cuz I never was a fan of authority.” 

“So why are you really down here?”

Hector shrugged. “Edmund can’t keep his thoughts to himself, an I don’t trust myself not t’ ruin Rapunzel’s surprises. It’s a big day, they’ve been through a lot. I’m lettin em be happy an enjoy themselves. Half the fun fer Rapunzel is settin shit up, half the fun fer Eugene is agonizin.”

=+=+=+=

He knows Eugene is planning to ask Rapunzel to marry him during the present opening, and he has a feeling she’s going to say yes this time. 

He has his own gift for them. The drawings aren’t anywhere near as good as Rapunzel’s, but he did his best. A small book of his favorite moments with Eugene, his favorite moments with Rapunzel. Little letters and thoughts among the drawings for them. 

He’d started it when Rapunzel was painting in the gallery, and had attempted to do a little each week. With how his life was it was nearly impossible to get to it each day. The (semi unwilling) journey had interrupted the little book but he’d recovered during the several nothing months. Hell, Arianna and Frederick had helped when they were still memory-less and he was baby sitting. Giving tips on the drawings and colors, helping with words and sentences.

It was easier reading books than writing them. 

The book was wrapped and sitting beside the other presents, innocent enough, though he’d had the urge to snatch it back twice. 

Eugene and Rapunzel, despite Cassandra being gone, were glowing. This year Rapunzel had gone all out for Eugene, perhaps to help with her grief and guilt. 

“I can’t believe I’m twenty seven today.” He was saying, and Hector snorted. 

“Uh yea, so am I.” He called, and there was a smattering of laughter. There was more talk and Edmund was as happy with Eugene’s joy as Hector felt.

“Swell party. Did my invitation get lost in the mail?”

“Hector-” Adira murmurs, and Hector sheaths his sword-gauntlet, surprised he’d even unsheathed it.

Siegmund is losing his mind beside Frederick and Arianna, and everyone else is varying amounts of terrified, concerned, and in Eugene’s case, annoyed. 

“You know what, next year let me handle my own guest list, mkay Blondie?”

Hector settles back on his heels, interested in observing. Most people thought Eugene didn’t have a temper, or that his temper was his theatrics. Actually he just had a long fuse, and Cassandra had just reached the end of Eugene’s large store of patience. 

Hazel eyes narrowed to dangerous slits, and Eugene moved to Cassandra as she walked to him and Rapunzel.

“I have had it up to _here_ with your pity party, Cass! We’ve all been worried sick, and you just refuse to let this go!”

“Oh Eugene, I’ve missed our little talks.” She murmured with a sick little smile. “It’s always nice seeing the gutter rats get happy endings.” Eugene pointed at her.  
  
“Um no. You don’t get to do that. I get it. You’re hurt. People lied to you. _You were abandoned_ . And believe me, I _get. It._ But expecting people to feel sorry for you while you attack them or try to manipulate them or hurt them over and over and _OVER AGAIN_ is frankly out of line!”

“You had a good childhood!”

“Yes! With my adoptive father! Funny enough, if I remember correctly, so did you!”

“She pushed my mother out of a window!”  
  
“Yea, and Edmund caused _my_ mother’s death with the black rocks but you’re not seeing me try to ruin his life!”

Rapunzel got between them, and it was a good thing her hair was sword and rock proof or she’d have been dead twice over. 

“Calm down, both of you! Cass, we’ve been worried sick. _I’ve_ been worried sick.”

“Too bad the sickness isn’t fatal. Oooh, is that cake?”

“Cassandra,” Rapunzel was pleading and Hector hated that. “You weren’t there. You don’t know what happened. Please-”

“Make me understand then, Rapunzel! Or push me out of a window, too. Either or.”

Eugene’s eyes widened. He stomped to the cake, grabbed a knife, and cut off a tower onto a plate before shoving it at Cassandra.

“Get out. Out, before I _make you_ get out.”

“You see princess, you can’t make good choices when all of your advisors are ex-convicts, murderers or fools.”

“Ex-convict? Excuse me, we were never convicted, nothing could stick.” Lance shot at her, and Hector smiled. The most highly incompetent competent pair he knew, and he’d raised them.

“You have till sunrise to give me the scroll, Princess, or I kill everyone you love.”

Lovely. 

=+=+=+=

“You know dad, I’m surprised she didn’t actively attack you.”

“She listed murderers, remember? She attacked me.”

“Ohh...yea...she did, didn’t she.”

And then there was Cassandra’s adoptive father comments, and Hector knew it was directed at her own father and Eugene but...yes, it stung. 

“You didn’t fight her.” Eugene comments, and Hector shrugs. 

“You were on it.” It’s worth seeing the bitter, half feral smile. 

“Fuckin right I was on it. She and Blondie were close and now she thinks she has the right to be like this?” He runs his fingers through his hair. “I was this close to stabbing her in her fucking jealous eyes.”

Hector watches Eugene fondly. He’s a good kid. Sometimes Hector wonders though, how the hell Eugene managed to be so good with Hector as a parental figure.

“She’s angry an she’s hurt.”  
  
“She’s outta line.” Eugene mutters. 

Hector snorts. “Yea, yer right. She is. Bitter’n’betrayed’n’confused. Her whole life’s a lie, an sure that’s not great but I ain’t sure she’da been this mad wi’out someone pullin strings.”

Eugene opened his mouth before Rapunzel came up to him. “Can I talk to you?”

Hector waved them away, and noticed with only slight surprise there was a foxglove sprout growing on his wrist. 

=+=+=+=

Later, in his shop, he and Quirin talked. “I’m gonna say right now it’s good Gothel’s dead.” Hector mentioned. “Or I’d kill her myself, right now.” 

“Would it be with the magic you didn’t mention you were learning from our enemy?” Hector gagged on his dandelion tea. 

“Quirin…” 

Quirin spread his hands. “Why am I always the one trying to rein you in when you get like this?”

“You... _can_ stop that.” 

Quirin just looked at him and Hector rolled his eyes. 

“I wouldn’t use th magic. I learned enough t stop feelin super sick, then ignored her again. ‘Sides. Gothel stabbed my boy. It’d only be fair to return the favor. Several dozen times.” 

“Petty as ever.” Quirin sighed fondly and Hector smiled. 

Suddenly, Lance limped in. Hector and Quirin set their tea down.

“Quirin. I’m so sorry. Varian-we-”

It was Hector’s turn to knock Quirin out and lock him in a room. 

When Quirin got Varian back, Hector for a moment thought Quirin would never let go of the boy again. 

  
  


=+=+=+=

Hector was close to saying Cassandra was irredeemable though, when he learned she’d put Varian in a tiny little ball cage several hundred feet above the ground held up by nothing but a tiny thread width spindle of rock. When he learned it was in the remains of Rapunzel’s prison, well, he hoped Cassandra choked but for the captain's sake she survived the choking. 

“Do you want to hurt her?” Asked Zhan Tiri, and Hector shrugged as he shelved his books. 

“Wanting and wishes won’t catch any fishes.” He recited like a prayer. “I already talked to her, and I’m guessing you turned it around.”

“It was despicably easy.” Admitted the girl, who was now corporeal when she wanted to be, and a shapeshifter. “Framed it as pity.”

“It _was_ pity. And annoyance. Mostly concern though. But then again, you know that.” 

The girl waved a hand dismissively. “It was more than that and you know that as well. Do not play games with _me_ , boy.” He gave her an annoyed look as she continued on calmly. “You wanted to plant a seed as it were, and I can’t let it happen.” She handed him a book and he put it on the shelf after glancing to make sure it was one of his stock.

“Paranoid.” She muttered and he shot her a glare. 

“You’re a demon who’s been fucking around in my head. No shit I’m going to be paranoid.”

“Why are you humoring me again, might I ask? I know you don’t like me, don’t trust me.”

“Better to humor the demons I know than the demons I don’t.” 

“How pragmatic.” She remarked dryly.

“Do I really have a choice?” He asked. She giggled. “By the way, I’ve been readin bout the tree.” the giggles stopped. 

“And?”

“I shouldn’t still be growin shit. If I’d died right after, yea, I’d have been a new tree or part of that tree. But I didn’t. So this is all you, keepin the connection.”

“How clever.” Her voice is flat, angry. “I underestimated you.”

“No worries. Ev’ryone does.” He soothed her with a little grin. “I’m part of th Brotherhood for a reason and it’s more than fighting skills.”

“Noted.”

He suddenly felt he’d given away more than he thought and turned to her fully for the first time in a long time.

“...What happened, then. That caused ya to be like this?”

“I was raised by wolves.” She beamed at him and he snorted.

“You’ve been in my head too long. That’s _my_ line.”

“We’re more alike than you think.”

“Mebbe. But if that’s true, shit, I’m better by th sheer fact I ain’t goin down yer path. Ain’t angry like you.”

“Well, not yet you aren’t.”

She’s gone before he can ask what _that_ means.

He has to stop engaging the demon in conversation. 

That night he goes to visit Varian by request of a note in the paws of Ruddiger, and they try to talk to the tree. Hector gains burns on his arms and back from an exploding invention he shields Varian from, but otherwise nothing of note happens. It’s just as well, as he brushes holly leaves off his arms, because would talking to the tree only cement the bond?

  
  


=+=+=+=

When the Mind Trap effects him, everything gets soft and fluid. There’s nothing else but Cassandra and Zhan Tiri and devotion to their cause. To _Zhan Tiri’s_ cause. For weeks he slips away to the tower at night and learns from his teacher, and comforts Cassandra. 

_“You wouldn’t believe it, dad! A guy named Brock Thunderstrike decided to take my Flynn Rider persona-and I mean, okay. I’m awesome but Brock Thunderstrike? That’s a cool name! Like come on! Then the Baron tried to kill us both!”_

“Remind me to punch Baron in the face if I ever meet him.”

_“I’m happy though, that I’m trusted enough to be the captain of the guard.”_

“Same kid. Same.”

  
  


He maintains a normal facade each day, but it’s an act and he can’t fathom a connection between Horace and Lance. There’s only the cause. The Brotherhood. 

As it gets closer to the eclipse he watches, waits, and helps Zhan Tiri prepare Cassandra for the final confrontation. 

He can now control vines and plant life. Zhan Tiri praises him, and he grins, proud, as he crushes a squirrel with white ivy.

When it’s time to tip his hand and reveal himself, he does. Varian’s machine in the throne room is an annoyance the Brotherhood has to neutralize. Quirin grabs Varian and throws him into the vortex, he and Hector held down with vines curling from the broken ground to climb around their legs. 

_“Dad, dad put me down, it’s Varian, it’s me, dad-dad please-DAD NO-”_

Hector turned on the machine with a laugh, knocking people off kilter with his vines to knock into the machine. When Varian was tossed in, Quirin grinned at him and Hector laughed back. For the cause, for the moonstone, for Cassandra. 

_“Hector, Hector! Stop!”_

The prince grabbed him by the arm and Hector knocked him back. “You think you can stop Zhan Tiri or Queen Cassandra? Not on my watch.”

_“Oh no, no, Hector...Edmund, we have to get that stone!”_

Hector unsheathes his gauntlet on the prince with an elated smile. 

“You’ve got a ten second head start, little prince, before I gut you like a fish.”

Horace ran, and Hector counted, in a bored sing-song, back from ten to one, his vines unwinding from around his legs as he walked forward towards the throne-room’s door. 

Yes, Hector knows he has to stop Horace, but really, it’s so much fun playing with prey first. Making them scared. He’s missed this. 

Why the hell did he stop in the first place? 

Baby’s breath grew along his arms, and he rubbed it away with annoyance before hitting one with a gleeful laugh and breaking into a run to pursue Horace. 

Ulysses, his rhino, was willing enough to chase Horace on Max, but his bitorungs Gris and Streluna were having issues with chasing Horace and Hector finally tangled them in vines so he could get to Horace and the tower unhindered. 

Not permanently, of course. Once he was far enough they couldn’t easily catch up, he relaxed the hold. It was hard with the distance to keep them tangled anyway.

  
  


He didn’t appreciate being dunked in the river, but it was fine. Hector was fine giving Horace time. 

It’d be all the sweeter when he killed him. 

_“Oh no, no, Edmund, not you too!”_

“We all took the oath, boy, to protect the moonstone. And now, to protect her highness Cassandra.”

Hector doesn’t understand the grief on Horace’s face. 

_“This is why you didn’t let me or Lance join isn’t it?”_

Hector giggles. “I’d kill anyone Cassandra bids. So it doesn’t matter. You’re just a mewling kitten.”

Horace pulls a sword from it’s scabbard and a knife from the sheath on his leg. 

_“I don’t want to fight you three. But I will.”_

“Keep him from the stone!” Edmund shouts, and Hector launches himself at Horace.

They’re too high up for the vines, but...a sword is good enough for this whelp. 

**“Arms UP kid. How can you block a sword if your sword is by your stomach and my dagger is going to your head?”**

**“It’s a roll, Eugene, not a fish flop!”**

**“If you don’t duck when someone kicks at you, you’re dead. Stunned and dead.”**

**“Disarm me, kid, because if it was anyone else, they’d kill you for the hesitation.”**

Memories are starting to _mean_ something again, and Hector begins grasping at them desperately even as he attacks with the intent to kill. He can’t stop, he’s out of control. 

He doesn’t want to do this. For a second his head is above water, the next he’s slammed against a wall and he’s under again. 

No hesitation. The mark on his hand burns. 

“Your dynasty ends here, Edmund. How does it feel having such a useless son?” Hector asks as he holds down a squirming Horace.

  
  
“I’ll feel better when he’s dead. Goodbye, Horace.”

_"PLEASE stop calling me HORACE!"_

"No mercy for the weak," Hector grunts, and bares Horace's throat, the mind trap stone skittering just beside his head.

_“Edmund-dad-I...I’ve been angry for so long and I don’t want to be. It’s not good to be angry at you. I’ve spent years hating you and I shouldn’t. I forgive you. I forgive you, dad.”_

Hector comes back to himself and rears back, fighting the control as Edmund slams the ax in the stone by Eugene’s head. 

Hector might have fallen off the ledge if Eugene hadn’t grabbed his shirt. 

Hector’s howling, and finally registers it’s death threats he’s screaming at the sky, between pained howls because **_how dare she do that to him._ **

He’d killed animals-for _sport-_ he’d said things about his son he couldn’t take back, helped betray his son-maybe Eugene and Rapunzel can forgive him, but it’s going to take a bit longer for _Hector_ to forgive himself. 

What he’d done is inexcusable. 

What _Cassandra_ did to him, and the others, is inexcusable. 

=+=+=+=

Zhan Tiri, as a demoness, is a sight. Repulsive and magnetic all at once. Hector wants to rip her apart. 

“Hector, you gonna be okay?”

“...Let’s deal with her, and then we can talk about that, alright?”

“...fair enough.”  
  
Eugene, he notices, hasn’t referred to him as ‘dad’ since the tower. And okay, it’s been a few hours, but what he said and what he did is making him overthink things, making him panic. He doesn’t have any idea what to do about this because really, the idea he’d be used against Eugene hadn’t ever occurred to him as anything but a passing worry. Hurting the ones he loved wasn’t part of who he was. 

“Hector, my favorite disciple.”

“You ain’t my master, woman, an ya never were!”

“Pity. You would have made a lovely pawn. But I gave you your powers, and I can take them away.”

For a moment it feels like he’s on fire, then like he’s made up of rot, and he screams, falling off Ulysses and watching in terror as his fingers root into the ground, before his heart seems to stop, and suddenly seeds are heaving out of his mouth. 

He wrenches his hands and feet from the earth, unsheathes his gauntlet sword, and lunges at her.

He’s stubborn and he’s petty and by god, she was going to feel his hate. 

=+=+=+=

When all is said and done, it’s only by the grace of Rapunzel he doesn’t kill Cassandra, even after Zhan Tiri is gone. 

“I was manipulated-” She tries to defend and he snarls at her.

“She talked t’ me too, girl. And I still had to be mind controlled to bend.”

When she leaves, he doesn’t mourn her, only looks at it as a warning for what could have happened, if he’d been just a little more bitter and just a little less careful.

She had left the wicker basket on his doorstep, and he burns it. He can’t regret the past kindness, but never again.

=+=+=+=

He does, actually, talk to the tree, when Zhan Tiri is gone. He even takes the spear again, and the heart becomes a red rose. A vine brushes through his hair in thanks, and they speak. 

The tree doesn’t take back what it gave him, though he hasn’t been able to use earth magic since the battle, and the connection is by now too well established. But there is an agreement for Hector to be buried in the roots of the tree, and really, he doesn’t mind. He’d wanted that anyway, among the history of the dark kingdom and the brotherhood.

A guardian role suited him.

  
when he combs fingers through hair, it’s just hair. He still tastes sap but for all intents...he’s human. And that’s fine.

Edmund and Adira invite him to travel on back to the castle with them, and he refuses. 

There’s no place for him there. He’s moved on.

He misses it, and it will always pull but...visiting is possible. He’s not exiled anymore and that’s the difference. 

=+=+=+=

Hector settles back at the bookshop, finally getting restful sleep and truly learning to be happy in the kingdom of the sun.

Quirin makes him give Eugene the little book, and while he doesn’t think their relationship is totally healed, Eugene hugs him tightly, and Rapunzel takes his hand and squeezes it. Silent thanks. He takes it. It’s a start.

  
He still can barely get along with Frederick and Arianna with their memories back and honestly? it’s fine. He’s never minded not having a relationship. It was an either or. Besides, there’s other things to consider.

Kiara and Catalina are his two new favorite (and currently only) grandchildren and he adores them. He adores Lance being with them, too. Often Catalina helps him with his books and often Kiara shows him new animals she’s found. He helps her raise an injured baby squirrel, and a small piece of him heals. 

=+=+=+=

Eventually, he does talk, really talk, to Eugene. Finally braves that.

“The things I said-”  
  


“I know you were mind controlled.”

“That doesn’t make them hurt any less.” Hector won’t let Eugene bury his hurt and betrayal just because Hector ‘didn’t mean it’ he meant it when he’d said it while under the mind trap. They both know it. “You got every right to be hurt by the words. By my actions.”

He watches Eugene, every piece a prince, a captain, a good man. He smiles ruefully. 

“I’m proud of who you are. How well you fought. It’s an honor t’serve you, King Eugene.” Eugene grins bashfully, ducks his head.

  
  


“I’m great but, not that great. You were always warning me about my blindsides.” Hector snorts at him. 

“Take a compliment, Eugene. I don’t give em lightly.”

“I-I know. I-thank you.”

He smiles fondly. “It’s an honor t’have you as my son.”  
  


They remain silent for a long time after, but it’s the right kind of silence.

=+=+=+=

He goes home, he goes to bed with his bitorungs curling beside him, and amidst the dreams of a brighter future, there is no fear and no sense of destiny and no sense of doom.

None whatever, at all.

Finally, Hector relaxes, and looks forward to a new day.


End file.
